Oh, politics and religion, what rich meals they do make! There are a few anonymous comments on these blogs about sex, too, since we have one (count it, ONE) naughty store in town with books, toys and videos. I think I read a comment about a “full service” massage parlor, too, but I’m easily confused. Or at least easily amused.
Nevertheless, blog wars are a’cookin’ in my diddly poop town. We have a good Christian idyllic town blog, PosMo, which, far from being completely saccharine and obliviously positive, has instead a missing sense of irony, which results in posts about how crappy the town is and how we can fix it. It also offers occasional pompous hypocrisy to the readers and commenters to “keep it positive”. A sarcastic counterblog, which points out some of the glaring inconsistencies at Posmo in an occasionally funny way, particularly with visual scorn, is CounterPosMo .
Then we have the “objective” blog, which thus far has spent most of its electrons on bashing the local newspaper. It needs bashing. I can’t figure out if there are no grownups working at the paper or if everyone they hire is just so damned incompetent that they come off as drugged out rejects from spelling and grammar bees. Read more at SkepMo.
We have an angry philosopher at HypMo who apparently had a point to make and then quit philosophizing, and we have the reserved, “we’re above it all” issue blog DocMo. DocMo purports to be trying to expose the corruption in our local hospital. Well, they’re kind of exposing it, except they really don’t want to expose it because that would be a “media circus” which, being so reserved and lofty, they’re above doing. So, I guess it’s more of a specialized venting blog.
If you want to get down and dirty and call a spade a spade, there’s SledgeMo , where you’re more likely to find a little hard-hitting reportage and attitude sorely missing from our local paper. Speaking of which, the Morris Daily Herald has three utterly useless personal massage blogs, linkable through here on the right hand side of the page if you scroll down a little. SledgeMo has mastered the art of small town snark and provides a forum for additional snarkage, which is strangely interesting.
Slicker and sleeker, and clearly more experienced in designing a blog, is an “I’m running for office because I’m swell” blog, MercMo . In contrast, we have MumbleMo, a blog that was probably intended to show the reasoning behind Good Old Boy decision making, but winds up with its feet tied up in its own lousy, long-winded and ultimately boring-as-all-snot writing. Short, declarative sentences for the general public, peeps – I’m just sayin’, y’know?
The oldest of these blogs is SkepMo, starting in February of 2006 with 72 posts to date. Most of the others, well, all of the others, are only a couple of months old with, generally, fewer than 10 posts. A couple of them are already moribund; the blogger has seemingly adequately expressed his or her motivating opinion and has nothing more to offer. I look at the rest of these blogs, and I see blogs that will die, probably pretty quickly, when either the blogger has finished venting or finds their issue resolved.
That causes me to look over my own blog, the only personal, individual blog that I’ve found from my town, and assess some things. When and why did I start blogging? What are my underlying motives? How am I doing? What’s the likelihood of longevity, here in this ephemeral medium?
In general, I think I’m doing pretty well. I’ve been blogging for about a year, and I’ve generated nearly 500 posts, about half of which are odd or dead words or some German idiom, but I don’t think I’ve ever posted those as my sole entry for the day – they’re usually accompanied by some personal verbiage. I’ve skipped weekends so as to have a life, and a couple of times I’ve had to take a longer vacation and put more time into that life to keep it chugging along. And, still, I write. I’ve had a lot of positive comments, I haven’t dumped any comments except for spam, and one of my posts has transitioned into print media.
I started blogging at the urging of some e-quaintances on a mail list. I was probably holding forth a great deal on that list and either they hoped to deflect me or encourage me to hold forth in a more accessible forum. I could have chosen to not do so just as easily as I chose to do so. In the past, I have had some success in writing for print media – usually a niche market, predominantly domestic humor. I found, much to my surprise, that I was even briefly mentioned in a dissertation on domestic humor, which made its way to mass market publication, “Merry Wives and Others”, which put me in august company, indeed. I’ve written random posts to various email lists for nearly 20 years now, and a number of them have been picked up for use in newsletters, Mensa publications and websites, and I’ve taken other posts, turned them into essays and those have gotten published, too
But, life interfered with what could have been an increasingly engaging pseudo career from home. I’ve lost my voice from time to time, and then, via email, I find it again. Blogging offered me an opportunity to revive my voice and take more control of keeping it in tune and in practice, so I did.
I have hopes of keeping it up. I could be doing more things better – I could be aggressively linking elsewhere, attempting to seek syndication, really dogging for more exposure. Maybe further along the road, I will. For now, I’m singing my writing scales until I’m comfortable with them.
And, there’s something I’ve noticed about blogs in my Internet treks. Issues blogs die young and without warning, like car crash victims. They run out of steam. Snarky blogs die even faster because, I think, the bloggers find out that snark is not very interesting, not even to them, after a few posts. Small political blogs, and even big, famous ones, make themselves easy to ignore because of spin. The blogs that last have humor, insight and human interest which help increase their hit counts. More importantly, they last because the bloggers write. It’s wonderful having a readership, even nicer having an increasing readership, and writing is an asynchronous form of communication, without question. But the real motivation, the real key to longevity, is how much the writer wants to write. And I do, it’s as important a part of who I am as the other hats I wear – mom, knitter, gardening nincompoop, Mensan, parrot owner, wife, and so on.
So, I’ll be here for some time more, and I hope you will be, too. And, if your town doesn’t have any blogs, feel free to visit those from my town; maybe they’ll make you laugh, groan, or start one of your own.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Oddball Word of the Day
cupule (KYOO-pyool) n. a cup-shaped process, as in the acorn
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Note: I'm not sure I get this definition -- how is an acorn a process? "Hi, I'm just standing around engaged in an acorn!"???
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Note: I'm not sure I get this definition -- how is an acorn a process? "Hi, I'm just standing around engaged in an acorn!"???
Monday, June 11, 2007
In the Gloaming
When the weather gets hot and dry, I like to be outside in the gloaming. For those of you old enough to have parents raised in the Depression, they may remember their parents singing “Roaming in the Gloaming”. The lyrics and a one-minute a cappella sample of this old folk tune are here.
I get nostalgic in the summer. Growing up in Virginia, we had a lot of summer. There was lots of hot summer weather in North Carolina, too, where we went to visit my mom’s side of the family. These vacations were never vacations in the sense of going somewhere to relax and pamper ourselves. These were working vacations, where we’d pitch in with the folks we stayed with and work alongside of them.
And we worked. I used to wear bandannas every day during the summer, and they were not a fashion statement. I’d have the front of the bandanna pulled about a third of the way down my forehead in front, and tied tight behind my ears, down at the back of my head. I’d have my hair in a ponytail once it was long enough, to keep it off my neck, and then I’d sometimes wear a baseball hat with a farm goods name on it over all of that. It sounds hot, but it did a bodacious job of keeping salty, stinging sweat from running into my eyes.
We’d start early in the day with whatever work was to be done, to get it underway before the heat of the day rose, so that we couldn’t abandon the chore that was already half-done. We’d have a light breakfast with biscuits and fatback or a piece of fried baloney, with coffee for the grownups and a slug of sweet tea for the kids. And, off we’d go, usually to pick something – snap peas, lima beans, berries, corn, butterbeans, field peas, or we’d go fishing, serious fishing, for food we’d eat that night.
Or we’d do some work in exchange for food – weed someone’s victory garden, and those were big gardens, and pull nasty horned caterpillars and other pests off the plants in exchange for a couple of brown grocery sacks of some crop that was in abundance. Sometimes we’d work in exchange for spicy, homemade breakfast sausage in fat rolls, which would get cut into short two-inch lengths and fried up the next morning. We’d fight off sand flies and mosquitoes, run from bees, get dirt under our fingernails, and usually find a pebble in our shoes by the time we got home, hot, sweaty, crabby, and stinky.
If we helped someone bring in a crop, like tobacco, then the adults got paid in cash. They’d give us a couple bucks for pocket money and keep the rest. My family didn’t need the money, but my mother’s side of the family needed the help. Too many generations of farming at the edge of subsistence, and too little education combined for long, hard lives for them. They were too proud to take the cash; they’d have been hurt or offended if my folks had offered it to them. Instead, we’d buy groceries for their freezers, or they’d let us take them out for treats like an ice cream cone or a lemonade and a relaxing drive on a Sunday afternoon. And we worked with them, to bring in bigger crops, process more food faster, and do what we could to help them through the lean months when there were no crops to pick and jobs were scarce and too far away to get to.
I caught my Dad one time, dropping a $20 bill under the edge of the bed as we were packing to leave. I started to point it out to him, and he shushed me. After we were underway and stopped for lunch, he quietly told me over the lunch table that he did that because he knew my aunt would find the money while she was putting fresh sheets on the bed, and she’d understand it was for something special and wouldn’t say anything about it, just put it to good use.
Anyway, by early evening, we’d have showered and changed into freshly laundered clothes that still smelled of sunshine from drying on the line. Dinner would have been a tasty farmer’s meal of, usually, chicken in some form – fried, boiled with dumplings, or stewed with vegetables, 5 or 6 side dishes – sliced beefsteak tomatoes, field peas and butterbeans flavored with bacon grease or fatback, hot water cornbread, cucumbers, which were still warm from the vine, pickles put up the preceding summer, maybe some hard-boiled eggs, fried okra, corn on the cob, or yellow crookneck squash fried with onions and bacon drippings. Then there’d be something fruity for dessert – homemade peach pie, apple pie, strawberry-rhubarb pie, or just fresh fruit – peaches, watermelon, cantaloupe, or cold berries. We’d eat ourselves stupid, somehow, in between lots of conversation and jokes and teasing each other, and wash it all down with sweet tea.
We would creakily haul ourselves outside to sit out on the porch swing or a glider in the gloaming, when the sun was barely set, the air temperature dropped significantly, and a cool breeze would spring up. The older ladies would stay inside to clean up the dishes, drink a little coffee and gossip. We kids would head out front with our dads and uncles. If there were a lot of family members around, someone would be sitting on the porch steps, leaning against the support post. Someone else would be perched on a footstool, leaning back against the front wall of the house. We’d each have a cold glass of sweet tea or, if we were feeling prosperous, a “Co-Coler” or a Dew.
It was quiet and peaceful, out in the blue of early evening, with the sounds of crickets and frogs waking up for the night. June bugs would crazily fly into things – the side of the house, a stump, a post, or a person, but there was always the same loud thunk, a noise too loud for something that small. After we’d gotten cooled down, someone would start telling jokes, or a story from their childhood, and the rest of us would ooh and ahh and chuckle. The moms and aunts would join us as the evening grew darker, sometimes still wiping their workworn hands on a dishtowel as they came, fussing slightly over something, through the creaky screen door. The men would get up so the ladies could sit, we kids would sit on the floor, and after a little desultory conversation and teasing, someone would start singing.
They were always simple songs, songs they had learned as children, maybe in church, maybe as lullabies, maybe as cadence songs to help them work long hours in the fields. Those of us who hadn’t heard them before would listen carefully, our eyes closed, feeling the cool night air tickling across our tired, browned limbs, and join in when we could remember enough of the just-heard chorus.
It was beautiful music, sung by a crowd of people I loved and who loved me back, just for being. It was a way to wind the day down, bringing peace within to match the peace of the evening, taking us away from our aching muscles, sunburnt noses and sore, torn fingers. Simple music, to be sung by any voice of any age; good words about things we knew or might like to know, to take us away from ourselves, just a little.
So, I like to go out in the gloaming, as the day turns to night. I can sit in a chair or on my glider, listen to the birds sing good-bye to the day and the crickets and frogs sing hello to the night. I hear music, very faint and far away some evenings, from the good, safe days of my childhood. The dew falls and the humidity rises, and I sometimes tap my foot or hum or even sing quietly to myself as the stars come out. Until someone comes looking for me, and I need to go back inside to my life in the present, I can relive those too-few days of hard work and summer nights in the South.
My family would have liked this song by Alison Krauss, beautiful footage and the song Down to The River to Pray.
I get nostalgic in the summer. Growing up in Virginia, we had a lot of summer. There was lots of hot summer weather in North Carolina, too, where we went to visit my mom’s side of the family. These vacations were never vacations in the sense of going somewhere to relax and pamper ourselves. These were working vacations, where we’d pitch in with the folks we stayed with and work alongside of them.
And we worked. I used to wear bandannas every day during the summer, and they were not a fashion statement. I’d have the front of the bandanna pulled about a third of the way down my forehead in front, and tied tight behind my ears, down at the back of my head. I’d have my hair in a ponytail once it was long enough, to keep it off my neck, and then I’d sometimes wear a baseball hat with a farm goods name on it over all of that. It sounds hot, but it did a bodacious job of keeping salty, stinging sweat from running into my eyes.
We’d start early in the day with whatever work was to be done, to get it underway before the heat of the day rose, so that we couldn’t abandon the chore that was already half-done. We’d have a light breakfast with biscuits and fatback or a piece of fried baloney, with coffee for the grownups and a slug of sweet tea for the kids. And, off we’d go, usually to pick something – snap peas, lima beans, berries, corn, butterbeans, field peas, or we’d go fishing, serious fishing, for food we’d eat that night.
Or we’d do some work in exchange for food – weed someone’s victory garden, and those were big gardens, and pull nasty horned caterpillars and other pests off the plants in exchange for a couple of brown grocery sacks of some crop that was in abundance. Sometimes we’d work in exchange for spicy, homemade breakfast sausage in fat rolls, which would get cut into short two-inch lengths and fried up the next morning. We’d fight off sand flies and mosquitoes, run from bees, get dirt under our fingernails, and usually find a pebble in our shoes by the time we got home, hot, sweaty, crabby, and stinky.
If we helped someone bring in a crop, like tobacco, then the adults got paid in cash. They’d give us a couple bucks for pocket money and keep the rest. My family didn’t need the money, but my mother’s side of the family needed the help. Too many generations of farming at the edge of subsistence, and too little education combined for long, hard lives for them. They were too proud to take the cash; they’d have been hurt or offended if my folks had offered it to them. Instead, we’d buy groceries for their freezers, or they’d let us take them out for treats like an ice cream cone or a lemonade and a relaxing drive on a Sunday afternoon. And we worked with them, to bring in bigger crops, process more food faster, and do what we could to help them through the lean months when there were no crops to pick and jobs were scarce and too far away to get to.
I caught my Dad one time, dropping a $20 bill under the edge of the bed as we were packing to leave. I started to point it out to him, and he shushed me. After we were underway and stopped for lunch, he quietly told me over the lunch table that he did that because he knew my aunt would find the money while she was putting fresh sheets on the bed, and she’d understand it was for something special and wouldn’t say anything about it, just put it to good use.
Anyway, by early evening, we’d have showered and changed into freshly laundered clothes that still smelled of sunshine from drying on the line. Dinner would have been a tasty farmer’s meal of, usually, chicken in some form – fried, boiled with dumplings, or stewed with vegetables, 5 or 6 side dishes – sliced beefsteak tomatoes, field peas and butterbeans flavored with bacon grease or fatback, hot water cornbread, cucumbers, which were still warm from the vine, pickles put up the preceding summer, maybe some hard-boiled eggs, fried okra, corn on the cob, or yellow crookneck squash fried with onions and bacon drippings. Then there’d be something fruity for dessert – homemade peach pie, apple pie, strawberry-rhubarb pie, or just fresh fruit – peaches, watermelon, cantaloupe, or cold berries. We’d eat ourselves stupid, somehow, in between lots of conversation and jokes and teasing each other, and wash it all down with sweet tea.
We would creakily haul ourselves outside to sit out on the porch swing or a glider in the gloaming, when the sun was barely set, the air temperature dropped significantly, and a cool breeze would spring up. The older ladies would stay inside to clean up the dishes, drink a little coffee and gossip. We kids would head out front with our dads and uncles. If there were a lot of family members around, someone would be sitting on the porch steps, leaning against the support post. Someone else would be perched on a footstool, leaning back against the front wall of the house. We’d each have a cold glass of sweet tea or, if we were feeling prosperous, a “Co-Coler” or a Dew.
It was quiet and peaceful, out in the blue of early evening, with the sounds of crickets and frogs waking up for the night. June bugs would crazily fly into things – the side of the house, a stump, a post, or a person, but there was always the same loud thunk, a noise too loud for something that small. After we’d gotten cooled down, someone would start telling jokes, or a story from their childhood, and the rest of us would ooh and ahh and chuckle. The moms and aunts would join us as the evening grew darker, sometimes still wiping their workworn hands on a dishtowel as they came, fussing slightly over something, through the creaky screen door. The men would get up so the ladies could sit, we kids would sit on the floor, and after a little desultory conversation and teasing, someone would start singing.
They were always simple songs, songs they had learned as children, maybe in church, maybe as lullabies, maybe as cadence songs to help them work long hours in the fields. Those of us who hadn’t heard them before would listen carefully, our eyes closed, feeling the cool night air tickling across our tired, browned limbs, and join in when we could remember enough of the just-heard chorus.
It was beautiful music, sung by a crowd of people I loved and who loved me back, just for being. It was a way to wind the day down, bringing peace within to match the peace of the evening, taking us away from our aching muscles, sunburnt noses and sore, torn fingers. Simple music, to be sung by any voice of any age; good words about things we knew or might like to know, to take us away from ourselves, just a little.
So, I like to go out in the gloaming, as the day turns to night. I can sit in a chair or on my glider, listen to the birds sing good-bye to the day and the crickets and frogs sing hello to the night. I hear music, very faint and far away some evenings, from the good, safe days of my childhood. The dew falls and the humidity rises, and I sometimes tap my foot or hum or even sing quietly to myself as the stars come out. Until someone comes looking for me, and I need to go back inside to my life in the present, I can relive those too-few days of hard work and summer nights in the South.
My family would have liked this song by Alison Krauss, beautiful footage and the song Down to The River to Pray.
Oddball Word of the Day
valetudinarian (Val-eh-Tood-eh-Ner-ee-an) n. 1. an invalid, 2, someone obsessed with his poor health
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Friday, June 08, 2007
Five Things I’d Like To Do This Summer
1. Help my risk-averse daughter get her driver’s license. She’s 17 and had the behind-the-wheel teacher from hell. It scared her off of driving for several months, and then she started driving with hubs, a person organically deprived of patience because of his ADHD. They were driving in snowy, icy weather, and had some very slippery, sliding encounters with the pavement. The best experience they had was when hubs had her driving around a church parking lot and had her deliberately go into a slide. They wound up stuck deeply into a snow bank at the edge of the parking lot. Fortunately, a wedding was just ending so they were rescued by men in tuxedos. So, the sum total, as my daughter wryly puts it, of her experience of learning of drive with Dad, is that if you get in trouble, you’ll be rescued by men in tuxes.
It’s probably also somewhat my fault that both my driving age kids are so cautious behind the wheel. I have no doubt that on more than one sleep-deprived day whilst driving them all somewhere in the momvan, I pulled to the side of the road as a result of their rambunciousness and hollered, “I’m steering a thousand pounds of rolling, steel death here! Can you please quit pulling the wings off of each other and be quiet?” I’m guessing that kind of yelling would have a lingering effect.
Anyway, I figure I’ll take Bunny out on the deserted country roads and let her learn the mechanics and techniques of merely driving until she has more confidence and skill and then we’ll try some encounters with traffic. That worked OK with Spawn, so I can only hope.
2. Hang out near water. That probably doesn’t sound like much of a goal. I do live near a river, but I don’t like it. It’s a stinky river, and it’s busy with boaters who drink and holler, and jetskiers who drink, holler and vroom. I’m thinking of something more along the lines of both a largish lake and at least an overnight stay. I need to stare at a large body of water for a little while. It’s very calming on the one hand, and invigorating on the other. Plus, it would be a nice change of pace from thinking about my sandy, weedy yard.
3. Speaking of weeds, I’d like to cut the big ones down. We get a lot of mulberry and Siberian elm hopefuls, and I really want to cut them down and poison their stumps to discourage them. We have a big yard, so it could conceivably take me a summer to conscientiously get rid of all of them. I think it’s like painting the Golden Gate Bridge – I get all the way to the other end and then have to start over again.
4. Yarn Crawl! It’s in the works with my small cadre of sister knitters from Chix, and we’re hoping to head north at the end of the month and work our way back south from yarn store to yarn store, fondling the fuzzies and critiquing the patterns along the way. There will, perhaps, be girl food midday.
5. Work with Doodle on learning to write on demand. The kid is brilliant in mathematics and science – always in the 99th percentile, but put him in front of an on the spot essay or extended response demand and he reacts as if someone had hit him with a “Petrificus Totalis” spell – locks right up, his brain frosts over, and you’d swear that if inertia weren’t working for him, he’d topple right to the floor and shatter like glass once he landed. He now has a “thing” about it, an aversion that kicks in because he’s had problems with this particular situation for so long, and the aversion is part of the problem. He does work well with a planned strategy or the literary equivalent of a formula, and I’ve looked up a few on the web, mostly from colleges. He’s going to have to take the SAT when he applies to IMSA, so he’ll need this skill, at least to some extent. It’s not that I have a desire for him to become a wonderful writer; I want to help him get past the blockage and be able to write a modestly acceptable response. Wish me luck.
Have a great weekend!
It’s probably also somewhat my fault that both my driving age kids are so cautious behind the wheel. I have no doubt that on more than one sleep-deprived day whilst driving them all somewhere in the momvan, I pulled to the side of the road as a result of their rambunciousness and hollered, “I’m steering a thousand pounds of rolling, steel death here! Can you please quit pulling the wings off of each other and be quiet?” I’m guessing that kind of yelling would have a lingering effect.
Anyway, I figure I’ll take Bunny out on the deserted country roads and let her learn the mechanics and techniques of merely driving until she has more confidence and skill and then we’ll try some encounters with traffic. That worked OK with Spawn, so I can only hope.
2. Hang out near water. That probably doesn’t sound like much of a goal. I do live near a river, but I don’t like it. It’s a stinky river, and it’s busy with boaters who drink and holler, and jetskiers who drink, holler and vroom. I’m thinking of something more along the lines of both a largish lake and at least an overnight stay. I need to stare at a large body of water for a little while. It’s very calming on the one hand, and invigorating on the other. Plus, it would be a nice change of pace from thinking about my sandy, weedy yard.
3. Speaking of weeds, I’d like to cut the big ones down. We get a lot of mulberry and Siberian elm hopefuls, and I really want to cut them down and poison their stumps to discourage them. We have a big yard, so it could conceivably take me a summer to conscientiously get rid of all of them. I think it’s like painting the Golden Gate Bridge – I get all the way to the other end and then have to start over again.
4. Yarn Crawl! It’s in the works with my small cadre of sister knitters from Chix, and we’re hoping to head north at the end of the month and work our way back south from yarn store to yarn store, fondling the fuzzies and critiquing the patterns along the way. There will, perhaps, be girl food midday.
5. Work with Doodle on learning to write on demand. The kid is brilliant in mathematics and science – always in the 99th percentile, but put him in front of an on the spot essay or extended response demand and he reacts as if someone had hit him with a “Petrificus Totalis” spell – locks right up, his brain frosts over, and you’d swear that if inertia weren’t working for him, he’d topple right to the floor and shatter like glass once he landed. He now has a “thing” about it, an aversion that kicks in because he’s had problems with this particular situation for so long, and the aversion is part of the problem. He does work well with a planned strategy or the literary equivalent of a formula, and I’ve looked up a few on the web, mostly from colleges. He’s going to have to take the SAT when he applies to IMSA, so he’ll need this skill, at least to some extent. It’s not that I have a desire for him to become a wonderful writer; I want to help him get past the blockage and be able to write a modestly acceptable response. Wish me luck.
Have a great weekend!
Oddball Word of the Day
prurient (PRUHR-ee-ehnt) adj. 1) having, given to, or causing lewd thoughts, 2) full of changing desires, itching curiosity, or an abnormal craving
(from the MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
German Idiom for Friday
das Geld zum Fenster hinauswerfen: to pour money down the drain
zB: Kauf deiner Nichte das teure Spielzeug nicht. In zwei Wochen wird sein Reiz schon vorbei sein, und dann ist dein Geld zum Fenster hinausgeworfen.
auf Englisch: Don't buy your niece that expensive toy. In two weeks its novelty will have worn off and then your money will have been poured down the drain.
(from the Guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
zB: Kauf deiner Nichte das teure Spielzeug nicht. In zwei Wochen wird sein Reiz schon vorbei sein, und dann ist dein Geld zum Fenster hinausgeworfen.
auf Englisch: Don't buy your niece that expensive toy. In two weeks its novelty will have worn off and then your money will have been poured down the drain.
(from the Guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Only Children
I have a fairly new friend who’s the mother of an only child, a friend of my daughter. I like both of them just fine. Except there’s this little switch somewhere in my mind that flips when I hear or think “only child” that turns on a sign, much like the EXIT signs in a movie theater. This particular sign says “Enmeshment”.
I don’t think it’s a guarantee that every only child is going to have an enmeshed relationship with one or both of their parents. It’s just a warning of potential sign, which is not limited to only child situations. And, of all the things possible that can happen in parent-child relationships, there are degrees, some more harmful than others. Some enmeshment is silent and insidious, some is overt and obvious, sometimes the kids don’t realize what’s going on any more than the parent does, sometimes the kid feels it when they get older and want to undergo normal separation, sometimes there are so many benefits, particularly material ones, that the kid consciously participates in maintaining the enmeshment. I don’t think any truly loving parent means to get so overly involved in their child’s life that they start occupying their emotional space. I think sometimes, it’s just a thing that happens.
In my own history, I have distinct reasons for being sensitive to enmeshment. My mother was so completely absorbed in my older sister’s life that she pretty much ruined my sister’s chance to have healthy, normal relationships. For my sister, Mom was constantly telling her what to do, what to think, what to wear, doing mind-reading that was largely egocentrically reflective of Mom’s state of mind or motivations. She’d spend hours and hours brainwashing my sister. There were secondary consequences, too – she had my sister convinced for years that the normal state of affairs in a relationship was for the other partner to be obsessed and completely preoccupied with what my sister wanted, thought, felt, might think, and that the other person should be able to read her mind to know her wants. It was scary sometimes, even after my sister moved thousands of miles away from Mom. And, to me, it’s sad. It’s taken my sister decades to recuperate even a little from the narcissism that Mom brainwashed her into. I’m awfully proud of her that she has done so and continues to do so; I know it’s been an immensely hard journey for her.
When my sister went off to college, which was the same year my parents divorced, Mom was so absorbed in herself and her own feelings that I was ignored, which was not a new state of affairs for me; Mom had pretty much ignored me for most of my childhood anyway. The difference was that when she did notice me, Mom wanted ME to be absorbed in her pain, feeling everything on her behalf, suffering for her, and any deviation from that she took as a conscious betrayal of her right to occupy my emotional space. That caused her a lot of rage, and she took it out on me.
It’s been a lot of years since then, and not by any stretch of the imagination do I think that that particularly twisted, dangerous and intensified form of enmeshment is the norm for only children. I don’t automatically assume that all enmeshment is that severe or damaging. I think the net result, as the two things cross, is that I have overly sensitive trip wires, which cause that “Enmeshment” sign to turn on in my head.
Sometimes I hear stories, told in completely innocent obliviousness, of parenting that seems to cross the line into enmeshment or distinct over involvement. But, it’s not my life, and no one put me in charge of anyone else’s parenting. So, when that happens, I think of it as merely a starting point for evaluating my own parenting. As a mother, it’s easy to be too much of a mother and smother kids with love, attention, affection, interest, and input. At what point does it become too much? At what stage am I crossing the line between being loving and involved and wind up treading in their emotional space instead?
When the kids were little, my husband gave me some good insight. I would lunge for Spawn every time he thudded into something, thinking I was being a good mom in preventing him from bashing his brains out onto the floor, or thinking it was my job to keep him from hurting his tiny, fleet-footed, heedless self, and I should kiss all the boo-boos and promptly bandage all the scrapes. Hubs pointed out that Spawn needed to crash into a few things to learn for himself to be more careful. He also pointed out that I was depriving Spawn of the chance to recover from doing so on his own and, here’s the big point, I was preventing him from learning to trust himself to be able to recover from a mishap.
He needed to learn to trust himself. And, it is good mothering to let him do so, even if I can fix a problem faster, better, more efficiently, and deliver a lecture on how to avoid whatever it was in the future. The point is not that I can do it for him; the idea is to let him learn to do it himself and then trust himself to do it. Over time, he’ll get better at it, and, maybe someday, he’ll ask for advice. Or not. And learning that starts early.
That goes hand in hand with another adage I remember from the early years of parenting, that a little neglect is good for kids. They will learn lessons in your absence that they need to learn, too. One of those lessons is self-sufficiency, another is self-confidence.
I think it’s those are profound, valid, and important lessons. Too much neglect is bad, of course, but I was not being a good mother by being constantly in Spawn’s space any more than it would have been good mothering to ignore him for days at a time. It’s harder though. It’s harder to be a little neglectful, a little distant, to ignore them a little, to be a little unconcerned about what goes on when I’m not looking than it is to be involved in their minutiae.
And, I think that’s what often gets left out of the parenting of only children and why my “Enmeshment” sign goes off. Are the kids being given enough time to be someone else, someone who can rely on him or herself? Do they get to make mistakes? And fix them? Are they being urged or emotionally forced to share the who, what, when, where, how of their learning? Do they get to have and keep experiences that don’t involve their parents? Including bad ones? Does everything have to be a family venture? Do they learn to deal with failure and success all on their own? Do they have enough privacy and personal strength to occupy their own personal space in the universe without it depending on their parents in any way?
I don’t know if I’ve done a good job picking times to stay out of my kids’ business and times to stick my big foot in. I know I’ve tried. Sometimes I’ve failed, and I know that, too. I do think, though, that just knowing and understanding the lesson my husband passed on has been a huge help to me.
I don’t think it’s a guarantee that every only child is going to have an enmeshed relationship with one or both of their parents. It’s just a warning of potential sign, which is not limited to only child situations. And, of all the things possible that can happen in parent-child relationships, there are degrees, some more harmful than others. Some enmeshment is silent and insidious, some is overt and obvious, sometimes the kids don’t realize what’s going on any more than the parent does, sometimes the kid feels it when they get older and want to undergo normal separation, sometimes there are so many benefits, particularly material ones, that the kid consciously participates in maintaining the enmeshment. I don’t think any truly loving parent means to get so overly involved in their child’s life that they start occupying their emotional space. I think sometimes, it’s just a thing that happens.
In my own history, I have distinct reasons for being sensitive to enmeshment. My mother was so completely absorbed in my older sister’s life that she pretty much ruined my sister’s chance to have healthy, normal relationships. For my sister, Mom was constantly telling her what to do, what to think, what to wear, doing mind-reading that was largely egocentrically reflective of Mom’s state of mind or motivations. She’d spend hours and hours brainwashing my sister. There were secondary consequences, too – she had my sister convinced for years that the normal state of affairs in a relationship was for the other partner to be obsessed and completely preoccupied with what my sister wanted, thought, felt, might think, and that the other person should be able to read her mind to know her wants. It was scary sometimes, even after my sister moved thousands of miles away from Mom. And, to me, it’s sad. It’s taken my sister decades to recuperate even a little from the narcissism that Mom brainwashed her into. I’m awfully proud of her that she has done so and continues to do so; I know it’s been an immensely hard journey for her.
When my sister went off to college, which was the same year my parents divorced, Mom was so absorbed in herself and her own feelings that I was ignored, which was not a new state of affairs for me; Mom had pretty much ignored me for most of my childhood anyway. The difference was that when she did notice me, Mom wanted ME to be absorbed in her pain, feeling everything on her behalf, suffering for her, and any deviation from that she took as a conscious betrayal of her right to occupy my emotional space. That caused her a lot of rage, and she took it out on me.
It’s been a lot of years since then, and not by any stretch of the imagination do I think that that particularly twisted, dangerous and intensified form of enmeshment is the norm for only children. I don’t automatically assume that all enmeshment is that severe or damaging. I think the net result, as the two things cross, is that I have overly sensitive trip wires, which cause that “Enmeshment” sign to turn on in my head.
Sometimes I hear stories, told in completely innocent obliviousness, of parenting that seems to cross the line into enmeshment or distinct over involvement. But, it’s not my life, and no one put me in charge of anyone else’s parenting. So, when that happens, I think of it as merely a starting point for evaluating my own parenting. As a mother, it’s easy to be too much of a mother and smother kids with love, attention, affection, interest, and input. At what point does it become too much? At what stage am I crossing the line between being loving and involved and wind up treading in their emotional space instead?
When the kids were little, my husband gave me some good insight. I would lunge for Spawn every time he thudded into something, thinking I was being a good mom in preventing him from bashing his brains out onto the floor, or thinking it was my job to keep him from hurting his tiny, fleet-footed, heedless self, and I should kiss all the boo-boos and promptly bandage all the scrapes. Hubs pointed out that Spawn needed to crash into a few things to learn for himself to be more careful. He also pointed out that I was depriving Spawn of the chance to recover from doing so on his own and, here’s the big point, I was preventing him from learning to trust himself to be able to recover from a mishap.
He needed to learn to trust himself. And, it is good mothering to let him do so, even if I can fix a problem faster, better, more efficiently, and deliver a lecture on how to avoid whatever it was in the future. The point is not that I can do it for him; the idea is to let him learn to do it himself and then trust himself to do it. Over time, he’ll get better at it, and, maybe someday, he’ll ask for advice. Or not. And learning that starts early.
That goes hand in hand with another adage I remember from the early years of parenting, that a little neglect is good for kids. They will learn lessons in your absence that they need to learn, too. One of those lessons is self-sufficiency, another is self-confidence.
I think it’s those are profound, valid, and important lessons. Too much neglect is bad, of course, but I was not being a good mother by being constantly in Spawn’s space any more than it would have been good mothering to ignore him for days at a time. It’s harder though. It’s harder to be a little neglectful, a little distant, to ignore them a little, to be a little unconcerned about what goes on when I’m not looking than it is to be involved in their minutiae.
And, I think that’s what often gets left out of the parenting of only children and why my “Enmeshment” sign goes off. Are the kids being given enough time to be someone else, someone who can rely on him or herself? Do they get to make mistakes? And fix them? Are they being urged or emotionally forced to share the who, what, when, where, how of their learning? Do they get to have and keep experiences that don’t involve their parents? Including bad ones? Does everything have to be a family venture? Do they learn to deal with failure and success all on their own? Do they have enough privacy and personal strength to occupy their own personal space in the universe without it depending on their parents in any way?
I don’t know if I’ve done a good job picking times to stay out of my kids’ business and times to stick my big foot in. I know I’ve tried. Sometimes I’ve failed, and I know that, too. I do think, though, that just knowing and understanding the lesson my husband passed on has been a huge help to me.
Oddball Word of the Day
darkle (DAHR-kul) v. to be or become dark, gloomy, or indistinct
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Speaking of Bums…
I think I have the most bedraggled yard on my street. I’m kind of bummed out about it too. Years ago, when my back and I were younger, I ambitiously renovated some old foundation yew plantings and spruced up overgrown trees. I pruned and sprayed and added perennials. I put in a little fountain and an annual garden. I mulched, hauling, all by myself, two entire truckloads of mulch to ring trees, enrich garden beds, hold back encroaching grass and so forth. And I’m not talking pickup truckloads, I mean the big professional size truckloads of mulch – I had made friends with an arborist and he sold me his full loads of chips for cheap. I was a muscular gal for several summers.
Then I pulled my back out of alignment and had to rest. I got weak. Things happened and complicated my life, and before I really thought much about it, it had been three or four summers, and I hadn’t gardened much more than to clear debris from the fountain area and keep the fountain going. I wanted to start gardening again, and I got about two hours in one day and found I had locked up my back again. I took it much easier that year, got the kids to help, which resulted in some pruning disasters, but we did get the weed growth under control. All that nicely enriched soil was very friendly to weeds. It looked good and the kids were proud of their contribution.
I had physical therapy for my back early in the year this year, and I’ve been good, if not assiduous, about keeping up with my therapy exercises. The kids and I hit the yard again this weekend, and, while I’m better, I’m still far too weak and wimpy and out of shape to do what it would take to get my garden areas back into apple-pie order without any help. I feel nostalgic about having been as fit as I was, and worse yet, I didn’t even realize or appreciate what good shape I was in at the time. I miss that feeling of strength and ability.
Anyway, a couple of years into ignoring my garden, my west side neighbor put up a fence. I can’t blame him. Once I finally did get over there to do some pruning and cleaning up, I realized that if I were he, I’d have put up a fence, too. The weed growth was ferocious – one of the weed trees was 10 feet tall.
On my east side is a small strip of offices, which went in about 2-1/2 or 3 years ago. They promised us they’d keep business traffic off of our street, and that they’d do some landscaping so that we wouldn’t have to look at their parking lot all the time. We’ve had some encounters during our getting-to-know-each-other period, but mostly things go along OK with little or no interaction.
Until now. It’s late in the year for me to finally starting hacking at weeds, and I never start on the east side anyway. I always start to the south, which is the window I look out of most of the time; it’s where the fountain is and the birdfeeders and the little annual bed. I can understand that the office-building owner would possibly think I was going to let everything get weedy and overgrown again. So, he’s putting up a fence, too.
Snort.
I’m pretty sure he’s putting up a fence because some of my neighbors have been making a lot of phone calls about the parking lot, and the weed-filled ditch next to his parking lot. Nevertheless, I still feel bad about not having gotten to weeding that side of the yard yet. Not real bad, but a little bad. Kind of like when hubs goes off to the Ace and I forget to ask him to get milk and then one or the other of us has to make a second trip later in the day… “Nuts, I forgot” or “Nuts, I haven’t gotten to it yet.”
I guess I’ll get to it when I get to it. If it bothers anyone too much, they can put up a fence or offer to help. Meanwhile, bit by bit, little by little, I’ll keep pulling a few weeds, dragging a little mulch around, and asking for help. Over time, all of that will get easier.
Then I pulled my back out of alignment and had to rest. I got weak. Things happened and complicated my life, and before I really thought much about it, it had been three or four summers, and I hadn’t gardened much more than to clear debris from the fountain area and keep the fountain going. I wanted to start gardening again, and I got about two hours in one day and found I had locked up my back again. I took it much easier that year, got the kids to help, which resulted in some pruning disasters, but we did get the weed growth under control. All that nicely enriched soil was very friendly to weeds. It looked good and the kids were proud of their contribution.
I had physical therapy for my back early in the year this year, and I’ve been good, if not assiduous, about keeping up with my therapy exercises. The kids and I hit the yard again this weekend, and, while I’m better, I’m still far too weak and wimpy and out of shape to do what it would take to get my garden areas back into apple-pie order without any help. I feel nostalgic about having been as fit as I was, and worse yet, I didn’t even realize or appreciate what good shape I was in at the time. I miss that feeling of strength and ability.
Anyway, a couple of years into ignoring my garden, my west side neighbor put up a fence. I can’t blame him. Once I finally did get over there to do some pruning and cleaning up, I realized that if I were he, I’d have put up a fence, too. The weed growth was ferocious – one of the weed trees was 10 feet tall.
On my east side is a small strip of offices, which went in about 2-1/2 or 3 years ago. They promised us they’d keep business traffic off of our street, and that they’d do some landscaping so that we wouldn’t have to look at their parking lot all the time. We’ve had some encounters during our getting-to-know-each-other period, but mostly things go along OK with little or no interaction.
Until now. It’s late in the year for me to finally starting hacking at weeds, and I never start on the east side anyway. I always start to the south, which is the window I look out of most of the time; it’s where the fountain is and the birdfeeders and the little annual bed. I can understand that the office-building owner would possibly think I was going to let everything get weedy and overgrown again. So, he’s putting up a fence, too.
Snort.
I’m pretty sure he’s putting up a fence because some of my neighbors have been making a lot of phone calls about the parking lot, and the weed-filled ditch next to his parking lot. Nevertheless, I still feel bad about not having gotten to weeding that side of the yard yet. Not real bad, but a little bad. Kind of like when hubs goes off to the Ace and I forget to ask him to get milk and then one or the other of us has to make a second trip later in the day… “Nuts, I forgot” or “Nuts, I haven’t gotten to it yet.”
I guess I’ll get to it when I get to it. If it bothers anyone too much, they can put up a fence or offer to help. Meanwhile, bit by bit, little by little, I’ll keep pulling a few weeds, dragging a little mulch around, and asking for help. Over time, all of that will get easier.
Oddball Word of the Day
pteridology (Ter-ih-DOL-uh-jee) n. the scientific study of ferns, horsetails, clubmosses, etc.
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Monday, June 04, 2007
Bum!
It started off as a joke about 6 years ago. Spawn was telling me about a visit to a friend’s house, and then he mentioned that his friend had made peach pie and that he had eaten some and really enjoyed it. I have a particular fondness for peach pie; it brings back some good memories of time spent as a child with one of my favorite aunts, my grandmother, and summertime in the South. So I asked him if he had brought me a piece of peach pie. “No,” he said, “I didn’t know you wanted some.” “BUM!” I replied, “I love peach pie!” We both laughed.
For some reason, that stuck. Every time he’d ask me if I’d washed and dried his jeans and I hadn’t, he’d “BUM” at me, and I returned the favor when asking about homework he hadn’t done yet. It was always a joke between us, with no hard feelings on either side. The other kids picked it up over time, too. It could be worse; it could be something obscene.
I guess it was only a matter of time, though, for the next stage. I was pouring myself coffee this morning, and Hawthorne asked me for a waffle. I said, “Sorry, no waffles.” And he replied, in a loud, clear birdie voice, “BUM!” and then he cackled at me.
I think I got my just desserts.
For some reason, that stuck. Every time he’d ask me if I’d washed and dried his jeans and I hadn’t, he’d “BUM” at me, and I returned the favor when asking about homework he hadn’t done yet. It was always a joke between us, with no hard feelings on either side. The other kids picked it up over time, too. It could be worse; it could be something obscene.
I guess it was only a matter of time, though, for the next stage. I was pouring myself coffee this morning, and Hawthorne asked me for a waffle. I said, “Sorry, no waffles.” And he replied, in a loud, clear birdie voice, “BUM!” and then he cackled at me.
I think I got my just desserts.
Oddball Word of the Day
psittacism (SIT-uh-sizm) n. repetitious and meaningless speech; parrot-like speech
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Friday, June 01, 2007
Five Nice Things About Today
1. Strawberries! Lots of large, ripe, delicious strawberries available in my grocery store – and now at my dinner table.
2. Books – I got a couple of books from my Amazon wish list which will just about complete my collection of Charlotte MacLeod mysteries.
3. No school -- I didn’t have to wake anyone up for school, no buses rumbled by, and I got lots of time to myself today.
4. Birthday wishes from friend and family far-flung, near at hand and otherwise!
5. Cheap hair doodles at Walgreen’s! I have long hair and have a residual teenager living in my decision-making apparatus when I wander down the hair aisle at Walgreen’s, so I like adolescent hair crap – twisty rubber bands with big balls on them, shiny, magpie-attracting scrunchies, and chignon chopsticks, which probably no one other than middle-aged goofs like me wear any more. And they’re shiny. (grin)
Have a great weekend!
2. Books – I got a couple of books from my Amazon wish list which will just about complete my collection of Charlotte MacLeod mysteries.
3. No school -- I didn’t have to wake anyone up for school, no buses rumbled by, and I got lots of time to myself today.
4. Birthday wishes from friend and family far-flung, near at hand and otherwise!
5. Cheap hair doodles at Walgreen’s! I have long hair and have a residual teenager living in my decision-making apparatus when I wander down the hair aisle at Walgreen’s, so I like adolescent hair crap – twisty rubber bands with big balls on them, shiny, magpie-attracting scrunchies, and chignon chopsticks, which probably no one other than middle-aged goofs like me wear any more. And they’re shiny. (grin)
Have a great weekend!
Oddball Word of the Day
evanesce (ev-uh-NESS) v. to fade slowly
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
German Idiom for Friday
nach Strich und Faden: good and proper
zB: Als sein Vater erfahren hat, dass Wolfgang das Geld gestohlen hatte, hat er ihn nach Strich und Faden verpruegelt.
auf Englisch: When his father discovered that Wolfgang had stolen the money, he spanked him good and proper.
Origin: From weaving, referring to the two directions of the thread - warp and woof
(from the Guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
zB: Als sein Vater erfahren hat, dass Wolfgang das Geld gestohlen hatte, hat er ihn nach Strich und Faden verpruegelt.
auf Englisch: When his father discovered that Wolfgang had stolen the money, he spanked him good and proper.
Origin: From weaving, referring to the two directions of the thread - warp and woof
(from the Guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Afghan Progress
Well, here’s where the sock yarn afghan stands so far. The kids think it’s great. Most of the time I like it, too, but other times I wonder if I’ve lost my mind. Then I get to wondering about how I wound up with all these sock yarn leftovers!
Oddball Word of the Day
culch (KULch): n. the mass of material, as stones, shells, etc., forming an oyster bed
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
An E-Mail I Did Send
Dear Mr. H***:
I am concerned about mixed messages sent to the students of **HS by some recent decisions made by the administration. In particular, I find the reward offered to students who took a recommended $75 four-session ACT cram course questionable. It is my understanding that in return for paying the fee and attending the sessions, juniors were exempted from their fourth quarter finals.
While the merits and efficacy of any cram course are debatable, that is not my main concern. My concern is that the choice to reward course takers with exemptions not offered to other students may appear to be the equivalent of “buying” their way out of the final exams. To the best of my knowledge, no academic conditions which might support earning an exemption from the finals applied, such as already having an A or high B in all class work prior to the final or even scoring above a certain level on the ACTs. Instead, it looks like “pay $75, escape finals”.
I have spoken with a number of people locally and received some disturbing feedback which supports my concern. One mother stated flat out that she paid for the course, not because she thought her child needed the cram course, but because she didn’t want her child to have to take a final in a difficult course and possibly get a “smudge” on her transcript. I’m sure **HS does not support grade grubbing or subverting class rigor, and I am disturbed that your actions may have resulted in that perception.
I also spoke with two graduates from **HS, one recent and one not-so-recent, both of whom received very fine scores of 31 on their ACTs, and they were aghast and offended that this option had been offered to current juniors. Both of them took rigorous courses, and in both cases they experienced exam results during their junior years which dropped their final class grades. They both stated that while it sounds nice to be able to “buy a better transcript”, they understood that studying for the finals and learning to accept a lower grade was a meaningful aspect of their education.
Additionally, I have discussed the matter with current teachers from other districts, retired teachers, and parents and students from other districts, and all of them have concerns about the ethical nature and educational goals of this choice. It seems to me that while you may have thought offering a cram course was a positive option, the incentive was contradictory to best practices in education, whether such was your intention or not.
I think it was a mistake to choose a reward which could be so easily misconstrued and misused. It's also possible that students may misunderstand the purpose of the cram course and believe it to be a suitable substitute for diligent, conscientious application to their daily studies for the three years they attend **HS prior to the ACT test. I am sure that you agree with me, and with the ACT service, that the best method for preparing for the ACT is consistent study in rigorous, demanding classes, not a short ZAP course. I hope that in the future you will consider offering rewards that support long-term, good academic habits and that you will avoid creating questionable incentives for things such as cram courses.
Sincerely,
Calmer BoS
I am concerned about mixed messages sent to the students of **HS by some recent decisions made by the administration. In particular, I find the reward offered to students who took a recommended $75 four-session ACT cram course questionable. It is my understanding that in return for paying the fee and attending the sessions, juniors were exempted from their fourth quarter finals.
While the merits and efficacy of any cram course are debatable, that is not my main concern. My concern is that the choice to reward course takers with exemptions not offered to other students may appear to be the equivalent of “buying” their way out of the final exams. To the best of my knowledge, no academic conditions which might support earning an exemption from the finals applied, such as already having an A or high B in all class work prior to the final or even scoring above a certain level on the ACTs. Instead, it looks like “pay $75, escape finals”.
I have spoken with a number of people locally and received some disturbing feedback which supports my concern. One mother stated flat out that she paid for the course, not because she thought her child needed the cram course, but because she didn’t want her child to have to take a final in a difficult course and possibly get a “smudge” on her transcript. I’m sure **HS does not support grade grubbing or subverting class rigor, and I am disturbed that your actions may have resulted in that perception.
I also spoke with two graduates from **HS, one recent and one not-so-recent, both of whom received very fine scores of 31 on their ACTs, and they were aghast and offended that this option had been offered to current juniors. Both of them took rigorous courses, and in both cases they experienced exam results during their junior years which dropped their final class grades. They both stated that while it sounds nice to be able to “buy a better transcript”, they understood that studying for the finals and learning to accept a lower grade was a meaningful aspect of their education.
Additionally, I have discussed the matter with current teachers from other districts, retired teachers, and parents and students from other districts, and all of them have concerns about the ethical nature and educational goals of this choice. It seems to me that while you may have thought offering a cram course was a positive option, the incentive was contradictory to best practices in education, whether such was your intention or not.
I think it was a mistake to choose a reward which could be so easily misconstrued and misused. It's also possible that students may misunderstand the purpose of the cram course and believe it to be a suitable substitute for diligent, conscientious application to their daily studies for the three years they attend **HS prior to the ACT test. I am sure that you agree with me, and with the ACT service, that the best method for preparing for the ACT is consistent study in rigorous, demanding classes, not a short ZAP course. I hope that in the future you will consider offering rewards that support long-term, good academic habits and that you will avoid creating questionable incentives for things such as cram courses.
Sincerely,
Calmer BoS
Oddball Word of the Day
dunnage (DUN-ij): n. 1. personal baggage, 2. poor material stowed round a ship's or railroad's cargo to protect it from injury
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
The Letter I Didn't Send to the Editor
Dear Editor:
This year, **HS has sold the equivalent of medieval indulgences – a practice whereby the Catholic Church sold a “pass into heaven” to wealthy donors who wanted to make sure they didn’t get stuck in Purgatory. They gave up the practice over the years, but apparently **HS thinks it’s a great idea.
Rather than a pass forgiving your sins, **HS has let every junior who paid for a recommended cram course for the ACT/PSAE tests, skip their finals. That’s a pretty cheesy and unethical way to try to improve the school’s unimpressive test score average, and it’s certainly morally questionable. It’s not a bright move for the kids either, since those classes rarely result in noticeably higher scores – maybe a point or two for low-end students, but not enough to really help individual students. Maybe they’ll help **HS’s average, though, which was clearly the point.
Meanwhile, my daughter, who has sensible parents with high standards, has done what both character and common sense recommend. She has, every year, taken a roster of courses with challenging and relevant content, as opposed to lofty titles backed by bad teachers or second-rate content. She has paid attention, done her homework, asked questions, and gotten support, encouragement, and enrichment at home. She has aced her classes and, based on the ACT scores which arrived in the mail, done her part to significantly raise the school test average.
The school is rewarding her for her excellent character, dedication, diligence, and performance by making sure she is one of the few juniors who will be taking finals. We’re not worried; she’ll do fine. She’s done fine all year and has the highest possible average in each of her classes going in to the finals. She would have EARNED her way out of finals if such a thing were possible. Unfortunately, our standards were too high, or we could have BOUGHT her way out.
Nice going, **HS. What’s next? A “straight A” slacker track for jocks? Oh, wait, maybe that’s not sarcasm; maybe it’s just déjà vu. I though we were past this nonsense, Mr. H*** and school board members – I thought we were going to get some honest improvements in rigor and academic integrity at **HS. I guess I’m a sucker… Need any more copy paper?
Earnestly,
BoS
This year, **HS has sold the equivalent of medieval indulgences – a practice whereby the Catholic Church sold a “pass into heaven” to wealthy donors who wanted to make sure they didn’t get stuck in Purgatory. They gave up the practice over the years, but apparently **HS thinks it’s a great idea.
Rather than a pass forgiving your sins, **HS has let every junior who paid for a recommended cram course for the ACT/PSAE tests, skip their finals. That’s a pretty cheesy and unethical way to try to improve the school’s unimpressive test score average, and it’s certainly morally questionable. It’s not a bright move for the kids either, since those classes rarely result in noticeably higher scores – maybe a point or two for low-end students, but not enough to really help individual students. Maybe they’ll help **HS’s average, though, which was clearly the point.
Meanwhile, my daughter, who has sensible parents with high standards, has done what both character and common sense recommend. She has, every year, taken a roster of courses with challenging and relevant content, as opposed to lofty titles backed by bad teachers or second-rate content. She has paid attention, done her homework, asked questions, and gotten support, encouragement, and enrichment at home. She has aced her classes and, based on the ACT scores which arrived in the mail, done her part to significantly raise the school test average.
The school is rewarding her for her excellent character, dedication, diligence, and performance by making sure she is one of the few juniors who will be taking finals. We’re not worried; she’ll do fine. She’s done fine all year and has the highest possible average in each of her classes going in to the finals. She would have EARNED her way out of finals if such a thing were possible. Unfortunately, our standards were too high, or we could have BOUGHT her way out.
Nice going, **HS. What’s next? A “straight A” slacker track for jocks? Oh, wait, maybe that’s not sarcasm; maybe it’s just déjà vu. I though we were past this nonsense, Mr. H*** and school board members – I thought we were going to get some honest improvements in rigor and academic integrity at **HS. I guess I’m a sucker… Need any more copy paper?
Earnestly,
BoS
Oddball Word of the Day
paladin (PAL-uh-din): n. a knight errant; a chivalrous champion
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Monday, May 14, 2007
A Written Excuse
Dear Nagging Feelings of Guild and Aggravation:
I didn’t post last week because I had stomach flu and for four days I was either lying on the couch trying to sleep, trying to choke down a saltine cracker, or lunging for the bathroom. Then, once I felt marginally human again, I decided to follow my very hopeful program of taking real care of myself, and I took it comparatively easy….
Also, my sister sent me 30 lbs. of organic raspberry granola, and I stared at it like a deer in the headlights for statistically significant parts of five days thinking:
a) 30 lbs of granola?
b) I do like raspberries
c) 30 lbs of granola?
d) How am I going to store all of that?
e) If this is what didn’t fit in her pantry, how the heck much granola did she buy?
f) Maybe I should haul my cramping self over the computer and look up granola recipes.
g) 30 lbs of granola?…
Then there was the excessive mothering part of my week. The Doodler is in honors Algebra and will be having a placement test for high school math at the end of this week. His math teacher, otherwise a very sensible person, has gone completely insane, and assigned a 2-foot high stack of review packets on everything they’ve been learning for the last year. They are expected to work through several inches of it every night, and the Doodle was getting frustrated and behind and starting to want to avoid math.
Enter Math Mommy, who picked up a new battery-operated pencil sharpener on a trip to the store for Kaopectate and sat down every night to work through the math worksheets with him. Relearning multiple uses of the quadratic formula and revisiting a childhood nightmare in which I was unable to factor equations because I missed that week in school, was really hard on my ego, as well as on my dramatic skills, i.e. faking being utterly delighted and calm over math things I haven’t visited for a period of time measured in decades. Not only did my mouth feel chalky, but my brain felt pretty well calcified, too.
And that was just the after-dark mothering component. During the day, I got to deal with masculine and feminine versions of teenage moodiness, which I think is now called “being emo”, and Spawn having a temper surge so excessive that I’ve made an appointment for him to go talk to a third party about anger management. It took some mighty snappy maternal footwork to de-escalate that situation and show the kids how grownups deal with situations that are worrisome without stressing anyone out.
I had a good Mother’s Day, though. Got some nice, modest plunder, hubs cooked and herded the kids around, everyone was either nice to me or not making much noise, and I only spent 4 hours with Doodle doing math worksheets. Just enough to warm up the brain cells! I also watched a marathon of “Deadliest Catch” in spells with hubs. Reality shows like that one remind me that life could be worse, and wetter, and involve a lot of things that pinch and smell funny.
I feel fine now, and I’m ready to get back to it. Oh, by the way, do you have any recipes involving granola?
Affectionately,
BoS
I didn’t post last week because I had stomach flu and for four days I was either lying on the couch trying to sleep, trying to choke down a saltine cracker, or lunging for the bathroom. Then, once I felt marginally human again, I decided to follow my very hopeful program of taking real care of myself, and I took it comparatively easy….
Also, my sister sent me 30 lbs. of organic raspberry granola, and I stared at it like a deer in the headlights for statistically significant parts of five days thinking:
a) 30 lbs of granola?
b) I do like raspberries
c) 30 lbs of granola?
d) How am I going to store all of that?
e) If this is what didn’t fit in her pantry, how the heck much granola did she buy?
f) Maybe I should haul my cramping self over the computer and look up granola recipes.
g) 30 lbs of granola?…
Then there was the excessive mothering part of my week. The Doodler is in honors Algebra and will be having a placement test for high school math at the end of this week. His math teacher, otherwise a very sensible person, has gone completely insane, and assigned a 2-foot high stack of review packets on everything they’ve been learning for the last year. They are expected to work through several inches of it every night, and the Doodle was getting frustrated and behind and starting to want to avoid math.
Enter Math Mommy, who picked up a new battery-operated pencil sharpener on a trip to the store for Kaopectate and sat down every night to work through the math worksheets with him. Relearning multiple uses of the quadratic formula and revisiting a childhood nightmare in which I was unable to factor equations because I missed that week in school, was really hard on my ego, as well as on my dramatic skills, i.e. faking being utterly delighted and calm over math things I haven’t visited for a period of time measured in decades. Not only did my mouth feel chalky, but my brain felt pretty well calcified, too.
And that was just the after-dark mothering component. During the day, I got to deal with masculine and feminine versions of teenage moodiness, which I think is now called “being emo”, and Spawn having a temper surge so excessive that I’ve made an appointment for him to go talk to a third party about anger management. It took some mighty snappy maternal footwork to de-escalate that situation and show the kids how grownups deal with situations that are worrisome without stressing anyone out.
I had a good Mother’s Day, though. Got some nice, modest plunder, hubs cooked and herded the kids around, everyone was either nice to me or not making much noise, and I only spent 4 hours with Doodle doing math worksheets. Just enough to warm up the brain cells! I also watched a marathon of “Deadliest Catch” in spells with hubs. Reality shows like that one remind me that life could be worse, and wetter, and involve a lot of things that pinch and smell funny.
I feel fine now, and I’m ready to get back to it. Oh, by the way, do you have any recipes involving granola?
Affectionately,
BoS
Oddball Word of the Day
auscultate (OSS-kuhl-tayt) v. to examine internal organs by listening to them through a stethoscope
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Oddball Word of the Day
psychataxia (sy-kuh-TAK-see-ah) n. inability to concentrate
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Monday, April 30, 2007
Shut Up, You’re Making Me Hate You
Man, raising kids is hard. When they’re babies, and all they can do is blow bubbles, cry and excrete copiously, they are physically demanding little snots despite their extreme overloads of cuteness. Then they turn into toddlers who run all the time and need potty training, and they start talking a little.
As they get older they talk more, sometimes so much, and about such horribly uninteresting things, (uninteresting at least to the parent who has taken a hiatus from frequent adult interactions in order to raise his or her own spawn) that parents get that glazed fake smile thing going on. I’ve worn it myself – my eyes look like I’m one consumer complaint away from going postal and beating swans to death with a frying pan, but I’m smiling even though it looks like it hurts. Small bits of sarcasm will squirt out amongst my nurturing mom speak.
“Yes, dear, of course the Play-doh is changing color. That’s because you didn’t wash your grimy little hands before you started playing with it.” Then the maternal guilt gear switches on… “Let’s go wash our hands with the nice ducky soap Grandma gave you for Christmas and see if we can wash our way down to the prize inside!” And, silently, I’m thinking, “It’s a stupid whistle all clogged up with soap. I know this because these are the leftover duck soaps that I didn’t use when I was a kid, they all had the same damned useless whistle in them, and my mother never threw out anything. We’ll be lucky if we can work up a single soapsud with this damned Jurassic soap.”
Then they get older and go off to school and come home with special new words they learned on the bus, which I’d find out about over some holiday dinner. “Damn f*ckers!” said my five-year-old in response to not getting the sweet potatoes fast enough, “Summa bits!” He grinned, waiting cluelessly for the food to be passed his way as every single adult at the table stopped stock still in shock and horror, then collectively, in one grand, accusatory motion, their heads turned towards me, and they glared. There I was, holding a bowl of dressing in one hand, a spoon in the other, sweaty and distracted from cooking all day, and 14 of the people I’d grown up respecting, loving, and hoping to impress were staring at me, the world’s worst parent. And, being me, the only response that immediately came to mind, and which slipped unwittingly past my lips was, “Holy crap,” thereby confirming everyone’s implied criticism that the five-year-old had indeed learned his expletives at home.
The years have rolled on, teen years hit, and between home and school a modicum of socialization occurred, and my oldest kid learned to confine his obscene language to situations involving only other teenagers or a recently slammed door from behind which I frequently heard long, eloquent, unrestrained, sometimes very creative, emotional, offensive soliloquies. I chose not to fight that battle, as so many more presented themselves directly everyday. I have a cartoon on my refrigerator which has been there for a decade now and which is still applicable. It shows duos of one teen and one parent entering through a movieplex turnstile. On the theater wall is a huge poster declaring, “Bring a Moody Teenager and Get In FREE!”
And then we arrived at the late teen years. By this time my kid has more of a clue about what words are socially acceptable and which aren’t, and he does a better job of keeping the good ones more active than the obscene ones. I’d hoped, somewhere back in my optimistic head, that we’d be getting along better now, that we could start the journey towards being adult relatives who love each other and can be friends. I forgot that he’s still fighting the separation battle all on his own. I’m perfectly happy for him to take full charge of himself, but he’s still fighting his way out of his life as a dependent as if it were an arena filled with powerful trolls and evil magicians, and he’s armed only with a sharp wit and an even sharper knowledge of which of my buttons to push to make me cede the power he thinks I still have.
This morning after everyone else had left to start their days elsewhere, I was sitting at the table, knitting a little on my sock yarn afghan during my morning break that I take between the frenzy of hustling them all off to their destinations and before I start chores. Spawn meandered by on his way towards college for the day, and I asked him if he had put a lot of extra dishes in the sink last night, since they weren’t there last night and they certainly were this morning. He said, “No, I don’t do that. I’m not the kind of person who does that. I know who did, or at least I suspect who did, but you don’t want to hear that from me, so I’m not going to say another word.”
I’d have been happy if he’d stopped at “No,” but Button No. 1 had been pushed, so I said, “All I asked was if you did it. I didn’t ask for any speculation. You didn’t, I can figure out who it probably was by myself, thanks. And, stop pretending you can read my mind, I think that’s really annoying.” To which he replied, “I’m not pretending to read your mind, I just know that the last 1800 times I’ve told you who does that stuff, you haven’t wanted to hear it.” Button No. 2 elicited my responding with, “You’re doing it again. Go to school.”
He replied, “I’m going to COLLEGE now because I already know I’m right.” He wandered off, then wandered back and squirted the following through the doorway, “You just proved my point, you know.” I tried very hard not to bite a chunk out of my coffee cup. I waited until I heard the door slam behind him, because teenaged boys do not close doors, they slam them, then watched to make sure his car drove off down the street and let out a huge breath and said, “DAMNIT!” and “for the love of God!”
I don’t understand how or when I became the enemy who needed vanquishing on a daily basis, sometimes several times a day. I am heartily sick of it, though, and I wonder if his constant assaults on me as a person, as a parent, and as an adult are really necessary. I wonder if I’m still being too nice, dawdling along indecisively in an unhelpful way.
If we were birds, I’d have shoved him out of the nest long ago with no remorse or regrets. If we were badgers, he’d still have the scar on his back from my biting him ferociously when he sassed me on his way out the door of the family den for the final time.
I’m feeling a little crushed, an ongoing condition of parenting, I think, but different from all the other variations once again. I wonder how I’m supposed to go about teaching him to stop being an asshole to me without hurting him, myself, or our relationship in the process. I’m tired, down in my heart, of explaining things, of being patient, of setting my feelings aside in order to be a good parent who looks first for what my child needs rather than prioritizing my own needs.
And, while I really, really, really, in my reptilian brain, have a huge desire to say to him, “Shut up, asshole, you’re making me hate you,” I know I won’t. I wish I knew what to say instead, though.
As they get older they talk more, sometimes so much, and about such horribly uninteresting things, (uninteresting at least to the parent who has taken a hiatus from frequent adult interactions in order to raise his or her own spawn) that parents get that glazed fake smile thing going on. I’ve worn it myself – my eyes look like I’m one consumer complaint away from going postal and beating swans to death with a frying pan, but I’m smiling even though it looks like it hurts. Small bits of sarcasm will squirt out amongst my nurturing mom speak.
“Yes, dear, of course the Play-doh is changing color. That’s because you didn’t wash your grimy little hands before you started playing with it.” Then the maternal guilt gear switches on… “Let’s go wash our hands with the nice ducky soap Grandma gave you for Christmas and see if we can wash our way down to the prize inside!” And, silently, I’m thinking, “It’s a stupid whistle all clogged up with soap. I know this because these are the leftover duck soaps that I didn’t use when I was a kid, they all had the same damned useless whistle in them, and my mother never threw out anything. We’ll be lucky if we can work up a single soapsud with this damned Jurassic soap.”
Then they get older and go off to school and come home with special new words they learned on the bus, which I’d find out about over some holiday dinner. “Damn f*ckers!” said my five-year-old in response to not getting the sweet potatoes fast enough, “Summa bits!” He grinned, waiting cluelessly for the food to be passed his way as every single adult at the table stopped stock still in shock and horror, then collectively, in one grand, accusatory motion, their heads turned towards me, and they glared. There I was, holding a bowl of dressing in one hand, a spoon in the other, sweaty and distracted from cooking all day, and 14 of the people I’d grown up respecting, loving, and hoping to impress were staring at me, the world’s worst parent. And, being me, the only response that immediately came to mind, and which slipped unwittingly past my lips was, “Holy crap,” thereby confirming everyone’s implied criticism that the five-year-old had indeed learned his expletives at home.
The years have rolled on, teen years hit, and between home and school a modicum of socialization occurred, and my oldest kid learned to confine his obscene language to situations involving only other teenagers or a recently slammed door from behind which I frequently heard long, eloquent, unrestrained, sometimes very creative, emotional, offensive soliloquies. I chose not to fight that battle, as so many more presented themselves directly everyday. I have a cartoon on my refrigerator which has been there for a decade now and which is still applicable. It shows duos of one teen and one parent entering through a movieplex turnstile. On the theater wall is a huge poster declaring, “Bring a Moody Teenager and Get In FREE!”
And then we arrived at the late teen years. By this time my kid has more of a clue about what words are socially acceptable and which aren’t, and he does a better job of keeping the good ones more active than the obscene ones. I’d hoped, somewhere back in my optimistic head, that we’d be getting along better now, that we could start the journey towards being adult relatives who love each other and can be friends. I forgot that he’s still fighting the separation battle all on his own. I’m perfectly happy for him to take full charge of himself, but he’s still fighting his way out of his life as a dependent as if it were an arena filled with powerful trolls and evil magicians, and he’s armed only with a sharp wit and an even sharper knowledge of which of my buttons to push to make me cede the power he thinks I still have.
This morning after everyone else had left to start their days elsewhere, I was sitting at the table, knitting a little on my sock yarn afghan during my morning break that I take between the frenzy of hustling them all off to their destinations and before I start chores. Spawn meandered by on his way towards college for the day, and I asked him if he had put a lot of extra dishes in the sink last night, since they weren’t there last night and they certainly were this morning. He said, “No, I don’t do that. I’m not the kind of person who does that. I know who did, or at least I suspect who did, but you don’t want to hear that from me, so I’m not going to say another word.”
I’d have been happy if he’d stopped at “No,” but Button No. 1 had been pushed, so I said, “All I asked was if you did it. I didn’t ask for any speculation. You didn’t, I can figure out who it probably was by myself, thanks. And, stop pretending you can read my mind, I think that’s really annoying.” To which he replied, “I’m not pretending to read your mind, I just know that the last 1800 times I’ve told you who does that stuff, you haven’t wanted to hear it.” Button No. 2 elicited my responding with, “You’re doing it again. Go to school.”
He replied, “I’m going to COLLEGE now because I already know I’m right.” He wandered off, then wandered back and squirted the following through the doorway, “You just proved my point, you know.” I tried very hard not to bite a chunk out of my coffee cup. I waited until I heard the door slam behind him, because teenaged boys do not close doors, they slam them, then watched to make sure his car drove off down the street and let out a huge breath and said, “DAMNIT!” and “for the love of God!”
I don’t understand how or when I became the enemy who needed vanquishing on a daily basis, sometimes several times a day. I am heartily sick of it, though, and I wonder if his constant assaults on me as a person, as a parent, and as an adult are really necessary. I wonder if I’m still being too nice, dawdling along indecisively in an unhelpful way.
If we were birds, I’d have shoved him out of the nest long ago with no remorse or regrets. If we were badgers, he’d still have the scar on his back from my biting him ferociously when he sassed me on his way out the door of the family den for the final time.
I’m feeling a little crushed, an ongoing condition of parenting, I think, but different from all the other variations once again. I wonder how I’m supposed to go about teaching him to stop being an asshole to me without hurting him, myself, or our relationship in the process. I’m tired, down in my heart, of explaining things, of being patient, of setting my feelings aside in order to be a good parent who looks first for what my child needs rather than prioritizing my own needs.
And, while I really, really, really, in my reptilian brain, have a huge desire to say to him, “Shut up, asshole, you’re making me hate you,” I know I won’t. I wish I knew what to say instead, though.
Oddball Word of the Day
matripotestal (MA-tree-poh-TES-tl) adj. of or relating to authority wielded by a mother or a mother's side of a family
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Friday, April 27, 2007
Five Things About Getting Into College
1. Your High School Has a Reputation: Yep, and the colleges in your state know it. Possibly, if a lot of the graduates go to a particular out of state college, that college knows it, too. Your high school may be known as being horrible about inflating grades, grading fairly, being outstanding in science and math, or having really well-trained students in foreign languages who need math remediation. Some of the teachers in your high school also have reputations at college – as being outstanding in preparing students, or as being burnouts who hand out A’s and lard transcripts with false information like so many scared hookers needing to meet a pimp-enforced quota. You might want to see if you can find a loose-lipped or just open and truthful admissions office employee in a nearby college to see what your high school’s rep is.
2. Grade Point Averages/Class Rank: These don’t count as much as you might think, particularly if your high school has a funky system of adding points depending on how they rank the difficulty of the class. Once the colleges know, and that happens pretty quickly after the fact, that your high school is grading AP classes on a 6 point scale and honors classes on a 5 point scale, with regular classes at 4 points for an A, the GPA and class ranking stats are either disregarded or looked at very differently. This kind of thing is excused by high school administration as a way of preventing students from gaming the system by taking all slacker classes and getting straight As to beat out someone who took challenging courses and got a GPA lower than 4.0. It may matter for the high school, but once this enters the data stream, it diminishes the whole class rank/GPA importance at the admissions level. Often, colleges will ignore the high school GPA and recalculate yours on a strict 4 point scale, only checking on course names/attributes if the GPA is unusually low. Also, class size matters. Being #5 out of 2000 is different than being #1 of 200.
3. Standardized Tests: The ACT and the SAT tests are important because they are the only uniform, objective measure of student achievement and aptitude available to the college. As GPAs and transcripts become infested with all kinds of manipulations, these tests become more and more important in the admissions process. Really outstanding scores can open doors on their own – admissions departments will look at those and, regardless of grades, see a gifted student looking for somewhere to call home, and most colleges would dearly love to enroll and enthrall as many gifted students as possible. The better the supporting grades, especially if they were in challenging courses, the faster the acceptance letter goes out. Even average or barely above-average grades can be excused under the “bored gifted student” theory, if the scores are high enough. When you get into the middle regions on the test scores, that’s when transcripts and high school GPAs are examined more closely for support or explanation. Conversely, a straight A transcript with a mediocre test score will signal that there's a high likelihood of grade inflation.
4. AP Classes: AP classes are not as highly regarded on campuses as you might think. At this point, most Ivy League colleges are only accepting scores of 5 on the AP exam as being sufficient for the student to skip an introductory level class. Some of them are no longer allowing students to skip introductory classes at all and don’t accept AP scores in lieu thereof. Other colleges may accept a 3 but require an additional placement test to confirm knowledge, however, they’ll let 4’s and 5’s skip the intro classes. There has been a debate raging for years over the validity of the AP class structure and curriculum as opposed to honors level classes and how each of these aligns with college expectations. I personally do not recommend AP classes for my kids or for others UNLESS the student has already taken every other available class in that discipline and has a true interest and desire to take the AP class. There is much more to be learned and experienced in the college classroom of comparable level that cannot be duplicated in a high school setting, and in the race for grades, GPAs and class standings, students who take an AP class just for the “status” or points may be missing out on far more valuable lessons in a good honors class, or in the college class they’d like to skip.
5. You don’t have to graduate from the first college you attend: I think the estimate, last time I saw it, was that about 3/5 of all colleges students who graduate do not do so from the college they first entered as freshmen. Since the 70’s, college students have become more nomadic, life stresses have changed, and families themselves move several times, bringing college students with them sometimes.
It’s not a bad idea to consider getting those first couple of years of credits from a cheaper college whose credits will transfer to your student’s eventual college of choice. The costs of attending a 4-year university are rising frighteningly every year already, anyway. It may be that your student doesn’t have the scores or grades to get into their preferred college – better to go to somewhere cheaper and prove themselves by doing well in college level courses and then transferring to the desired location. This also gives students a chance to accustom themselves to college level work, save a little extra money so any student loans won’t be outrageous, and to figure out if they really want to stick with their first choice as a major, or if something else is a better fit, which might also change their minds about what college they want to finish up at.
Most colleges require that you take 60 hours through their school in order to get a degree from them. That’s the last 2 years, at 15 hours per semester. Transfer information is available on their websites, and that information shows what colleges and which courses from the current college have been comped out to classes on the desired college campus.
OK, that’s it for me for the week. Have a great weekend!
2. Grade Point Averages/Class Rank: These don’t count as much as you might think, particularly if your high school has a funky system of adding points depending on how they rank the difficulty of the class. Once the colleges know, and that happens pretty quickly after the fact, that your high school is grading AP classes on a 6 point scale and honors classes on a 5 point scale, with regular classes at 4 points for an A, the GPA and class ranking stats are either disregarded or looked at very differently. This kind of thing is excused by high school administration as a way of preventing students from gaming the system by taking all slacker classes and getting straight As to beat out someone who took challenging courses and got a GPA lower than 4.0. It may matter for the high school, but once this enters the data stream, it diminishes the whole class rank/GPA importance at the admissions level. Often, colleges will ignore the high school GPA and recalculate yours on a strict 4 point scale, only checking on course names/attributes if the GPA is unusually low. Also, class size matters. Being #5 out of 2000 is different than being #1 of 200.
3. Standardized Tests: The ACT and the SAT tests are important because they are the only uniform, objective measure of student achievement and aptitude available to the college. As GPAs and transcripts become infested with all kinds of manipulations, these tests become more and more important in the admissions process. Really outstanding scores can open doors on their own – admissions departments will look at those and, regardless of grades, see a gifted student looking for somewhere to call home, and most colleges would dearly love to enroll and enthrall as many gifted students as possible. The better the supporting grades, especially if they were in challenging courses, the faster the acceptance letter goes out. Even average or barely above-average grades can be excused under the “bored gifted student” theory, if the scores are high enough. When you get into the middle regions on the test scores, that’s when transcripts and high school GPAs are examined more closely for support or explanation. Conversely, a straight A transcript with a mediocre test score will signal that there's a high likelihood of grade inflation.
4. AP Classes: AP classes are not as highly regarded on campuses as you might think. At this point, most Ivy League colleges are only accepting scores of 5 on the AP exam as being sufficient for the student to skip an introductory level class. Some of them are no longer allowing students to skip introductory classes at all and don’t accept AP scores in lieu thereof. Other colleges may accept a 3 but require an additional placement test to confirm knowledge, however, they’ll let 4’s and 5’s skip the intro classes. There has been a debate raging for years over the validity of the AP class structure and curriculum as opposed to honors level classes and how each of these aligns with college expectations. I personally do not recommend AP classes for my kids or for others UNLESS the student has already taken every other available class in that discipline and has a true interest and desire to take the AP class. There is much more to be learned and experienced in the college classroom of comparable level that cannot be duplicated in a high school setting, and in the race for grades, GPAs and class standings, students who take an AP class just for the “status” or points may be missing out on far more valuable lessons in a good honors class, or in the college class they’d like to skip.
5. You don’t have to graduate from the first college you attend: I think the estimate, last time I saw it, was that about 3/5 of all colleges students who graduate do not do so from the college they first entered as freshmen. Since the 70’s, college students have become more nomadic, life stresses have changed, and families themselves move several times, bringing college students with them sometimes.
It’s not a bad idea to consider getting those first couple of years of credits from a cheaper college whose credits will transfer to your student’s eventual college of choice. The costs of attending a 4-year university are rising frighteningly every year already, anyway. It may be that your student doesn’t have the scores or grades to get into their preferred college – better to go to somewhere cheaper and prove themselves by doing well in college level courses and then transferring to the desired location. This also gives students a chance to accustom themselves to college level work, save a little extra money so any student loans won’t be outrageous, and to figure out if they really want to stick with their first choice as a major, or if something else is a better fit, which might also change their minds about what college they want to finish up at.
Most colleges require that you take 60 hours through their school in order to get a degree from them. That’s the last 2 years, at 15 hours per semester. Transfer information is available on their websites, and that information shows what colleges and which courses from the current college have been comped out to classes on the desired college campus.
OK, that’s it for me for the week. Have a great weekend!
Oddball Word of the Day
oystered (OI-sterd): adj. (of furniture) veneered with designs made up of concentric rings
(from the MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
German Idiom for Friday
in alles seine Nase hineinstecken: to poke one's nose into everything
zB: Es aergert mich, wie er seine Nase in alles hineinsteckt. Wieviel Geld ich verdiene, geht ihn einfach nichts an.
auf Englisch: It annoys me how he pokes his nose into everything. How much money I earn is just no business of his.
(from the Guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
zB: Es aergert mich, wie er seine Nase in alles hineinsteckt. Wieviel Geld ich verdiene, geht ihn einfach nichts an.
auf Englisch: It annoys me how he pokes his nose into everything. How much money I earn is just no business of his.
(from the Guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Chix Pix
Here are the pictures I was trying to upload last week of projects underway in our wee little local knitting group.
This one is a baby sweater, done in Shadows (I think) yarn from Patons. It's very soft, and the color variations are lovely. Dig those fancy stitch holders! I can't help thinking of hard plastic curlers that we used to use when I was a young sprout, but these look to be holding stitches even better than those curlers held hair!
And here's a baby blanket, crocheted, but who cares. It looks great -- not sure about the yarn, but this gal has done a great job blending the colors.
And, here, being held by our doyienne, our maven, our Goddess of Fancy Schmancy Stitches, is a pair of fabulous socks in a soft natural yarn with the most beautiful and subtle variations in color that I think I've ever seen. I think these twin gorgeousities are from a Maggie's Rags pattern, but I was too busy drooling in envy to pay that much attention. I, meanwhile, am plugging along on the Charlotte's Web shawl which looks exactly the same as before only more so. I'd be bored with it if the group conversation weren't so distractingly interesting that I wind up having to undo rows because I've gone off count.
And, as I promised, here's the latest Sock Afghan in progress. I've had to add in some Moda Dea which is really a sport weight, but some of the sock yarns are the heavier weight anyway, so there was always going to be some variation in density anyway. Why not use up my oddballs of lightweight yarns? It's being fun.
Keep 'em clickin'!
Oddball Word of the Day
proem (PROH-eem) n. a preface; an introduction
(from the MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Midwestern Medley
Well, last night I went out to visit a friend at her workplace, and we spent about an hour hashing over the recent school board elections and debating intelligent design. It was an interesting discussion. This morning, just as I was loading a pan of biscuits in the oven, another good friend called, a retired high school math teacher, and we worked over the problems with schools today (mission creep, low teacher standards, and general cussedness all around), and talked about a declining yarn shop.
I could probably hold forth about any one of these things at great and vigorous length, but then your eyes would probably glaze over, and to paraphrase Dave Barry, your brains would sneak out of the auditorium of your skull and go off to play Frisbee in the park. Besides, between Wikipedia’s entries on any one or all of those topics and various authoritative and credible websites, I’d just be duplicating existing electrons in the cyber spume hanging over the Midwest anyway.
So, I think I’ll talk about my refrigerator instead. Well, not actually my refrigerator, more like what’s in it. Or, even more accurately, what’s not in it. I have thrown out the honey mustard. I know that probably doesn’t make drums beat, horns tootle and pennons flutter for you, but it’s a big step for me.
I’m generally pretty good about combing through leftovers once a week or more to add to meals in the making or just to get them out of there before they become unidentifiable. I’m not so good at doing the same for the door of my frig, which is where all the useful and hopeful condiments hang out. All the popular condiments hang out on the top rack – the mayonnaise, ketchup, yellow mustard, Miracle Whip and sweet pickle relish. If there’s a skosh more room, a plastic lime might be there, too, for the few times hubs or I want to have a drink and squirt a little citrus into it.
The second shelf holds our second string, backup type condiments – Worcestershire sauce, a bottle of lemon juice, teriyaki and/or soy sauce, jams and jellies. The third shelf has the hopeful items on it, things I’ve bought for a particular recipe I tried once and not enough people liked it for me to make it again before the ingredients became forgotten. That’s where capers, the pickles with the missing label, olives of uncertain birth date, and the horseradish stay.
The third shelf also has odd mustards that only I like, and things in jars we get as gifts. After a certain age, I think lots of us get things in jars for gifts. Hot pepper jelly, mint jelly, some kind of marmalade with a peculiar spice in it, or organic apple butter that wasn’t quite right the first time you tried it, but you couldn’t stand to throw it out just in case someone else might like it better. I think the third shelf in my frig door should be called the “just in case” shelf. So that’s where the honey mustard was.
The bottom shelf has salad dressing on it. The only reason it’s been sent to the equivalent of refrigerator purgatory instead of being located higher up is that that’s the shelf with enough room for the bottles to stand upright. We keep fairly up to date on our dressings.
So anyway, back to the “just in case” shelf and honey mustard. I don’t keep track of freshness dates on the “just in case” condiments, even though I know I should. Most of the time what goes through my mind is either, “It’s PICKLED, how can it go bad?” or “How can you tell if horseradish has gone bad anyway?” As a result, the third shelf gets crowded, stuff is stacked on top of other stuff until something falls to the floor once too often when I open the frig, and I decide to cull the condiment herd. Unless someone else is next to me, making their wishes known, I tend to throw out stuff I don’t like and leave stuff I think I might like behind.
That’s not as successful as it could be, since I have very eclectic tastes in food and a very hopeful, optimistic approach to using up even the strangest of pickled or preserved things in jars. “I can put it in a stir fry/batch of cranberry sauce/pasta salad,” I think to myself. Then the capers grow more tired looking as I keep forgetting to put them in something, and I still don’t know if those are dill or sweet pickles lollygagging on my third shelf.
Today, as I was making myself a sandwich out of Things The Children Won’t Eat, like cappicola, some Christmas cheese with a creepily fake name, like Edamster du Nord, I thought I’d put some honey mustard on the sandwich for a little tangy taste treat. We got this mustard in a gift box along with the creepy cheese and a couple of those sausages with no particular flavor but an estimated shelf-life in the range of Lincoln’s four-score reference. I think we had previously put it on Townhouse crackers and added real pepperoni.
Anyway, as I opened the jar and attempted to stir the honey mustard around to homogenize it, I remembered why we had never finished it in the first place. It’s got too much honey and not enough mustard, and it tastes like honey with a little accidental mustard in it. I used it anyway because my parents’ leftover Depression era bull-headed frugality pops up frequently when I’m in the kitchen, trying to not waste food. The sandwich would have been better, by a long shot, without the honey mustard.
As I sat at the table, chewing manfully through a sandwich made nasty by inappropriate frugality, I decided I had had enough. No one was going to come racing up behind me and push me to my death over chucking mustard no one will eat. We were not going to have to tell our children we couldn’t send them to college because I had thrown out a jar of gift mustard and thereby whimsically squandered their college funds on some replacement Grey Poupon. So, I chucked it. I felt so triumphant that I threw out the olives, too, and then the capers.
I’m still working up to the horseradish and the mystery pickles. No need to get carried away.
I could probably hold forth about any one of these things at great and vigorous length, but then your eyes would probably glaze over, and to paraphrase Dave Barry, your brains would sneak out of the auditorium of your skull and go off to play Frisbee in the park. Besides, between Wikipedia’s entries on any one or all of those topics and various authoritative and credible websites, I’d just be duplicating existing electrons in the cyber spume hanging over the Midwest anyway.
So, I think I’ll talk about my refrigerator instead. Well, not actually my refrigerator, more like what’s in it. Or, even more accurately, what’s not in it. I have thrown out the honey mustard. I know that probably doesn’t make drums beat, horns tootle and pennons flutter for you, but it’s a big step for me.
I’m generally pretty good about combing through leftovers once a week or more to add to meals in the making or just to get them out of there before they become unidentifiable. I’m not so good at doing the same for the door of my frig, which is where all the useful and hopeful condiments hang out. All the popular condiments hang out on the top rack – the mayonnaise, ketchup, yellow mustard, Miracle Whip and sweet pickle relish. If there’s a skosh more room, a plastic lime might be there, too, for the few times hubs or I want to have a drink and squirt a little citrus into it.
The second shelf holds our second string, backup type condiments – Worcestershire sauce, a bottle of lemon juice, teriyaki and/or soy sauce, jams and jellies. The third shelf has the hopeful items on it, things I’ve bought for a particular recipe I tried once and not enough people liked it for me to make it again before the ingredients became forgotten. That’s where capers, the pickles with the missing label, olives of uncertain birth date, and the horseradish stay.
The third shelf also has odd mustards that only I like, and things in jars we get as gifts. After a certain age, I think lots of us get things in jars for gifts. Hot pepper jelly, mint jelly, some kind of marmalade with a peculiar spice in it, or organic apple butter that wasn’t quite right the first time you tried it, but you couldn’t stand to throw it out just in case someone else might like it better. I think the third shelf in my frig door should be called the “just in case” shelf. So that’s where the honey mustard was.
The bottom shelf has salad dressing on it. The only reason it’s been sent to the equivalent of refrigerator purgatory instead of being located higher up is that that’s the shelf with enough room for the bottles to stand upright. We keep fairly up to date on our dressings.
So anyway, back to the “just in case” shelf and honey mustard. I don’t keep track of freshness dates on the “just in case” condiments, even though I know I should. Most of the time what goes through my mind is either, “It’s PICKLED, how can it go bad?” or “How can you tell if horseradish has gone bad anyway?” As a result, the third shelf gets crowded, stuff is stacked on top of other stuff until something falls to the floor once too often when I open the frig, and I decide to cull the condiment herd. Unless someone else is next to me, making their wishes known, I tend to throw out stuff I don’t like and leave stuff I think I might like behind.
That’s not as successful as it could be, since I have very eclectic tastes in food and a very hopeful, optimistic approach to using up even the strangest of pickled or preserved things in jars. “I can put it in a stir fry/batch of cranberry sauce/pasta salad,” I think to myself. Then the capers grow more tired looking as I keep forgetting to put them in something, and I still don’t know if those are dill or sweet pickles lollygagging on my third shelf.
Today, as I was making myself a sandwich out of Things The Children Won’t Eat, like cappicola, some Christmas cheese with a creepily fake name, like Edamster du Nord, I thought I’d put some honey mustard on the sandwich for a little tangy taste treat. We got this mustard in a gift box along with the creepy cheese and a couple of those sausages with no particular flavor but an estimated shelf-life in the range of Lincoln’s four-score reference. I think we had previously put it on Townhouse crackers and added real pepperoni.
Anyway, as I opened the jar and attempted to stir the honey mustard around to homogenize it, I remembered why we had never finished it in the first place. It’s got too much honey and not enough mustard, and it tastes like honey with a little accidental mustard in it. I used it anyway because my parents’ leftover Depression era bull-headed frugality pops up frequently when I’m in the kitchen, trying to not waste food. The sandwich would have been better, by a long shot, without the honey mustard.
As I sat at the table, chewing manfully through a sandwich made nasty by inappropriate frugality, I decided I had had enough. No one was going to come racing up behind me and push me to my death over chucking mustard no one will eat. We were not going to have to tell our children we couldn’t send them to college because I had thrown out a jar of gift mustard and thereby whimsically squandered their college funds on some replacement Grey Poupon. So, I chucked it. I felt so triumphant that I threw out the olives, too, and then the capers.
I’m still working up to the horseradish and the mystery pickles. No need to get carried away.
Oddball Word of the Day
mugwump (MUG-wump) n. 1. one who acts independently of political parties or affects superiority in political or other issues, 2. one who cannot decide his views or who takes a neutral view in political or other issues
(from the MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Monday, April 23, 2007
Plans for Life
Bunny is preparing for her ACT exam to be held in the middle of this week. This weekend she was telling me how she would not normally be stressed out over it, but the school administrators and her peers are strung tighter than a lot of guitar strings over it, which is, in turn, very wearing and wearying for her.
I’m pretty sure that part of the reason the administrators are wired is because the ACT results at the high school have been dropping over the last few years, and, while the drop is not huge, it is a matter of concern in the big picture. It makes them look bad (and for good reason, I think), so they’ve been recommending $80 preparation sessions for students, even going so far as to send promotional flyers home to parents with lots of exclamation points and holding assemblies during school hours to try to convince the students to enroll in these sessions.
I remember a few years ago when a very bright cousin called me up and said her brilliant son was worried about not doing well on the SATs, and she asked me if I, since I used to tutor for ACT/SAT prep, would talk to him. He got on the phone, and I said, “Did you go to school for the last 11 years?” He snorted and said he had. I asked, “Did you pay attention?” He said that of course he had. I asked, “Were your grades good?” He said they were. “Did you take challenging courses,” I asked. He recited a list including mainly honors courses, calculus, and other highly regarded classes. I said, “You’ll do fine. Get a good night’s sleep, and eat a nice breakfast. Take extra pencils.” He laughed and handed the phone back to his mom. She chuckled as he repeated our conversation in the background. “Thank you” she said, “he was so worried that there was something more he was supposed to have done. I know he’ll do well, and he looks much calmer now.” He did extremely well and was offered quite a few scholarships.
I repeated the gist of this conversation to Bunny as we talked. She relaxed, too. I pointed out to her that the review classes are mainly for kids who have not done well in their challenging courses or who have not taken difficult classes. They won’t have the familiarity with upper level mathematics that she has, nor will they have challenged themselves with learning their mother tongue to the extent she has.
She laughed and told me about her English class, where, for the last 6 weeks, the teacher has been handing out vocabulary lists for the students to study and get tested on. She said, “Mom, every time we get one of these lists, I look down it, and I already know most of the words. You use them around us all the time, and if we ask what they mean, you either tell us or make us look them up ourselves. It’s kind of funny.” We grinned at each other and recited my humorous vocabulary mantra, “nexus, frangible, apoplexy,” and giggled some more because for the last few years, I’ve been prodding the kids to learn some unusual words by using those three in conversation and NOT telling them what they mean. Instead, I wink and tell them they’re going to find all three of those words on at least one standardized exam, and they should learn to use them in their writing, too.
Bunny then segued into what’s really bugging her – the career tests they’ve been given lately and her concerns that there must be something wrong with her because she doesn’t know what she wants to do with the rest of her life yet. I told her I’d be very surprised if many people really knew what they wanted to do with their lives at age 17, that my experience told me that teenagers usually have, at best, an idealized view of what they’d like to do, but that most of them have no clue and feel very panicky about being told they should know, unequivocally, what they want to major in and then do until they leave this mortal coil. She and I talked about how many people don’t work in the field they majored in, not directly, and not for their entire lives, that they change jobs over the course of a lifetime.
And, we talked again about how the first two years of a college education are usually general studies years anyway, where you get to take a lot of different courses and find out what hits your hot button, what you’re good at, what you find that you truly enjoy doing. She looked a little skeptical, so I told her about my own experience.
I had entered college with the pigheaded teen notion that only a degree in Chemistry would do for me. It was not a positive time in the history of women in America for women to major in the sciences, particularly not the “hard” sciences. Women were more often found in Biology or Horticulture, but seldom in Physics or Chemistry. There were times I was the only female in a given Chemistry class. I took a roster of various classes, did well in them, but found myself becoming disenchanted with Chemistry while becoming more engrossed in my business classes and finding real joy in studying German. I stayed pigheaded for a number of years, feeling that I would somehow be letting myself down if I didn’t doggedly pursue that Chemistry degree and ignoring what my innate talents told me was a better course of study for me. That pigheadedness was one of the reasons it took me so long to get the degrees that I finally did get at age 40-ish.
I pointed out to Bunny that my wish for her was not that she would know what she wanted to learn before she went to college, but that she would be lucky enough to take a class that would be interesting, motivating, challenging, and fulfilling, and that I really didn’t care what it is, what matters to me is that SHE finds it worthy of pursuing further. She nodded and mentioned again how much pressure the teachers and staff at the high school are putting on the kids to decide now what they’re going to major in in college.
I told her to ignore them, that the best preparation for doing well in college in any major is to do exactly what she’s been doing so far – taking challenging courses, doing her best, and making sure to try to learn something valuable in each one. She still looked worried, so I asked her how she felt about the upcoming ACTs.
Bunny said she felt pretty well prepared for the English segments, but she was a little worried about the math portion. So, I gave her a tip – she has already learned all the math she’s going to before the test, what she needs to do in order to feel more confident is remind herself of the math she hasn’t been using lately, and that’s easy enough to do – just flip backwards through her current text and the ones we have around the house, and write important formulas on one side of a flash card, the definition on the other side, and mentally review how to do each one of them. Remembering the vast number of formulas, particularly for geometry, can be a real sticky point during the math segment.
Her mouth fell open, and she said, “Oh, my God. I never thought of using flash cards, even though you taught me to do them for French, and they work PERFECTLY all the time. I’m going to do that!” She hugged me, and I smiled at her, happy to have relieved some of her stress.
Later, she was working on some homework for English and picked out a bunch of words from Poe’s “The Raven” that she wasn’t sure of. She asked me about them, and I answered, although one had me stymied at first. I asked her to spell it out for me, and I made a guess – sublunary – sub – beneath or lesser, lun – moon, ary – characterized by being…, so I said that all out loud and guessed that it might mean something beneath the moon. She looked it up, and that’s the first definition. She smiled at me again and said, “Good work piecing that out, Mom, thanks.” And, I know she wasn’t thanking me for knowing the word, she was thanking me for reminding her that she knows how to do that, too.
I don’t have the answers for what other people, not even my children, should be doing with their lives. I don’t even know what I should be doing with mine, truth be told. I do have some tools I can share with them to help them find their own stars and learn how to trust themselves along the way, and I hope I can get those across to them.
Guess I’d better go do my own “homework” now, too.
I’m pretty sure that part of the reason the administrators are wired is because the ACT results at the high school have been dropping over the last few years, and, while the drop is not huge, it is a matter of concern in the big picture. It makes them look bad (and for good reason, I think), so they’ve been recommending $80 preparation sessions for students, even going so far as to send promotional flyers home to parents with lots of exclamation points and holding assemblies during school hours to try to convince the students to enroll in these sessions.
I remember a few years ago when a very bright cousin called me up and said her brilliant son was worried about not doing well on the SATs, and she asked me if I, since I used to tutor for ACT/SAT prep, would talk to him. He got on the phone, and I said, “Did you go to school for the last 11 years?” He snorted and said he had. I asked, “Did you pay attention?” He said that of course he had. I asked, “Were your grades good?” He said they were. “Did you take challenging courses,” I asked. He recited a list including mainly honors courses, calculus, and other highly regarded classes. I said, “You’ll do fine. Get a good night’s sleep, and eat a nice breakfast. Take extra pencils.” He laughed and handed the phone back to his mom. She chuckled as he repeated our conversation in the background. “Thank you” she said, “he was so worried that there was something more he was supposed to have done. I know he’ll do well, and he looks much calmer now.” He did extremely well and was offered quite a few scholarships.
I repeated the gist of this conversation to Bunny as we talked. She relaxed, too. I pointed out to her that the review classes are mainly for kids who have not done well in their challenging courses or who have not taken difficult classes. They won’t have the familiarity with upper level mathematics that she has, nor will they have challenged themselves with learning their mother tongue to the extent she has.
She laughed and told me about her English class, where, for the last 6 weeks, the teacher has been handing out vocabulary lists for the students to study and get tested on. She said, “Mom, every time we get one of these lists, I look down it, and I already know most of the words. You use them around us all the time, and if we ask what they mean, you either tell us or make us look them up ourselves. It’s kind of funny.” We grinned at each other and recited my humorous vocabulary mantra, “nexus, frangible, apoplexy,” and giggled some more because for the last few years, I’ve been prodding the kids to learn some unusual words by using those three in conversation and NOT telling them what they mean. Instead, I wink and tell them they’re going to find all three of those words on at least one standardized exam, and they should learn to use them in their writing, too.
Bunny then segued into what’s really bugging her – the career tests they’ve been given lately and her concerns that there must be something wrong with her because she doesn’t know what she wants to do with the rest of her life yet. I told her I’d be very surprised if many people really knew what they wanted to do with their lives at age 17, that my experience told me that teenagers usually have, at best, an idealized view of what they’d like to do, but that most of them have no clue and feel very panicky about being told they should know, unequivocally, what they want to major in and then do until they leave this mortal coil. She and I talked about how many people don’t work in the field they majored in, not directly, and not for their entire lives, that they change jobs over the course of a lifetime.
And, we talked again about how the first two years of a college education are usually general studies years anyway, where you get to take a lot of different courses and find out what hits your hot button, what you’re good at, what you find that you truly enjoy doing. She looked a little skeptical, so I told her about my own experience.
I had entered college with the pigheaded teen notion that only a degree in Chemistry would do for me. It was not a positive time in the history of women in America for women to major in the sciences, particularly not the “hard” sciences. Women were more often found in Biology or Horticulture, but seldom in Physics or Chemistry. There were times I was the only female in a given Chemistry class. I took a roster of various classes, did well in them, but found myself becoming disenchanted with Chemistry while becoming more engrossed in my business classes and finding real joy in studying German. I stayed pigheaded for a number of years, feeling that I would somehow be letting myself down if I didn’t doggedly pursue that Chemistry degree and ignoring what my innate talents told me was a better course of study for me. That pigheadedness was one of the reasons it took me so long to get the degrees that I finally did get at age 40-ish.
I pointed out to Bunny that my wish for her was not that she would know what she wanted to learn before she went to college, but that she would be lucky enough to take a class that would be interesting, motivating, challenging, and fulfilling, and that I really didn’t care what it is, what matters to me is that SHE finds it worthy of pursuing further. She nodded and mentioned again how much pressure the teachers and staff at the high school are putting on the kids to decide now what they’re going to major in in college.
I told her to ignore them, that the best preparation for doing well in college in any major is to do exactly what she’s been doing so far – taking challenging courses, doing her best, and making sure to try to learn something valuable in each one. She still looked worried, so I asked her how she felt about the upcoming ACTs.
Bunny said she felt pretty well prepared for the English segments, but she was a little worried about the math portion. So, I gave her a tip – she has already learned all the math she’s going to before the test, what she needs to do in order to feel more confident is remind herself of the math she hasn’t been using lately, and that’s easy enough to do – just flip backwards through her current text and the ones we have around the house, and write important formulas on one side of a flash card, the definition on the other side, and mentally review how to do each one of them. Remembering the vast number of formulas, particularly for geometry, can be a real sticky point during the math segment.
Her mouth fell open, and she said, “Oh, my God. I never thought of using flash cards, even though you taught me to do them for French, and they work PERFECTLY all the time. I’m going to do that!” She hugged me, and I smiled at her, happy to have relieved some of her stress.
Later, she was working on some homework for English and picked out a bunch of words from Poe’s “The Raven” that she wasn’t sure of. She asked me about them, and I answered, although one had me stymied at first. I asked her to spell it out for me, and I made a guess – sublunary – sub – beneath or lesser, lun – moon, ary – characterized by being…, so I said that all out loud and guessed that it might mean something beneath the moon. She looked it up, and that’s the first definition. She smiled at me again and said, “Good work piecing that out, Mom, thanks.” And, I know she wasn’t thanking me for knowing the word, she was thanking me for reminding her that she knows how to do that, too.
I don’t have the answers for what other people, not even my children, should be doing with their lives. I don’t even know what I should be doing with mine, truth be told. I do have some tools I can share with them to help them find their own stars and learn how to trust themselves along the way, and I hope I can get those across to them.
Guess I’d better go do my own “homework” now, too.
Oddball Word of the Day
thews (THYOOZ): n. pl. sinew; muscle; muscular strength
(from the MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Friday, April 20, 2007
Five Things To Do For My Head Cold
I hate head colds. With a stuffy nose I sound stupid and comical and pathetic all at the same time, my nose gets red, and I’m cranky. As a mom, and many, many moms can relate, unless I make a specific conscious effort to treat myself as well as I would a sick kid, I could have this durned cold for the rest of the month. So,
1. Put the warm, ugly robe back on: I’m not going anywhere, so there’s no reason to be all dressed and harnessed up like I’m going to be called on to be the emergency chairmom for a PTO meeting. I think many women have favorite ugly robes. My sister used to have one made out of a pink chenille bedspread. It had been washed so many times it was more of a mauve-gray color, and it was big enough to cover her and two shy Druids.
My stepmom had a blue, quilted “sick day” robe that zipped up the front and had big cabbage roses on it, along with handy side pockets for holding tissues. Mine is a green velour robe with a zipper, and one good pocket. It used to have two good pockets, but I left a dog cookie in one when Hoover was a puppy, and he got the cookie by chewing through the pocket. I guess that’s one example of doggedness. Anyway, my green horror has been so well loved that I’ve completely worn away the nap on the elbows and was left only with the underlying mesh until I patched over those with some spare blue sweatshirt material. The hems are frayed, too. It’s a perfect sick day robe.
2. Lie on the couch without guilt, all day: Normally I feel pretty guilty about lying around on the couch unless it’s late and I’m watching TV with the kids or the hubby. The last time I lay down on the couch during the day for an extended period of time, I had just broken a big toe and needed to elevate it and let the aspirin kick in. That was in 2003 or so.
3. Take vitamins and slurp them down with Orange Juliuses: I always tell the kids to take vitamins when they’ve got colds, and I guess I’ll line up the OTC bottles and have at them myself today. I figure Orange Juliuses are good medicine – half orange juice and half 7-Up – nutritious and soothing to a potentially cranky stomach!
4. Let someone else fix dinner: We swap off making dinner, and the kids have gotten really good at it over the years. This would normally be one of my nights to cook, but it’s kind of icky to think of sick people cooking the food. Since I’m the sickie, I will excuse myself from cookery and nominate whoever the heck else feels up to it. All the kids know how to make chicken soup from scratch, y’know, if anyone was looking for hints and ideas.
5. Put down the needles and wallow in stuff I’ve already knit and read until I doze off: It’s just cool enough today to need an afghan and some nice hand knit socks. Hey, lucky me, I have plenty of each! I’ve also been on a series reading kick and am working on Charlotte MacLeod’s Sarah Kelling/Max Bittersohn books. I’m up to The Convivial Codfish, one of my favorites. It doesn’t take a lot of brainpower, but it is amusing and sweet.
Have a great weekend, and take good care of yourselves, too!
1. Put the warm, ugly robe back on: I’m not going anywhere, so there’s no reason to be all dressed and harnessed up like I’m going to be called on to be the emergency chairmom for a PTO meeting. I think many women have favorite ugly robes. My sister used to have one made out of a pink chenille bedspread. It had been washed so many times it was more of a mauve-gray color, and it was big enough to cover her and two shy Druids.
My stepmom had a blue, quilted “sick day” robe that zipped up the front and had big cabbage roses on it, along with handy side pockets for holding tissues. Mine is a green velour robe with a zipper, and one good pocket. It used to have two good pockets, but I left a dog cookie in one when Hoover was a puppy, and he got the cookie by chewing through the pocket. I guess that’s one example of doggedness. Anyway, my green horror has been so well loved that I’ve completely worn away the nap on the elbows and was left only with the underlying mesh until I patched over those with some spare blue sweatshirt material. The hems are frayed, too. It’s a perfect sick day robe.
2. Lie on the couch without guilt, all day: Normally I feel pretty guilty about lying around on the couch unless it’s late and I’m watching TV with the kids or the hubby. The last time I lay down on the couch during the day for an extended period of time, I had just broken a big toe and needed to elevate it and let the aspirin kick in. That was in 2003 or so.
3. Take vitamins and slurp them down with Orange Juliuses: I always tell the kids to take vitamins when they’ve got colds, and I guess I’ll line up the OTC bottles and have at them myself today. I figure Orange Juliuses are good medicine – half orange juice and half 7-Up – nutritious and soothing to a potentially cranky stomach!
4. Let someone else fix dinner: We swap off making dinner, and the kids have gotten really good at it over the years. This would normally be one of my nights to cook, but it’s kind of icky to think of sick people cooking the food. Since I’m the sickie, I will excuse myself from cookery and nominate whoever the heck else feels up to it. All the kids know how to make chicken soup from scratch, y’know, if anyone was looking for hints and ideas.
5. Put down the needles and wallow in stuff I’ve already knit and read until I doze off: It’s just cool enough today to need an afghan and some nice hand knit socks. Hey, lucky me, I have plenty of each! I’ve also been on a series reading kick and am working on Charlotte MacLeod’s Sarah Kelling/Max Bittersohn books. I’m up to The Convivial Codfish, one of my favorites. It doesn’t take a lot of brainpower, but it is amusing and sweet.
Have a great weekend, and take good care of yourselves, too!
Oddball Word of the Day
aleatory (AY-lee-eh-toh-ree) adj. depending on a contingent event; uncertain; dependent on luck
(...and, in case anyone has forgotten why I abbreviate it so outrageously, this is from The New York Times Everyday Reader's Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, Mispronounced Words edited by Laurence Urdang) !
(...and, in case anyone has forgotten why I abbreviate it so outrageously, this is from The New York Times Everyday Reader's Dictionary of Misunderstood, Misused, Mispronounced Words edited by Laurence Urdang) !
German Idiom for Friday
Kommt Zeit, kommt Rat. : Time will tell (prov.)
zB: Soll ich sie heiraten oder nicht? Die Entscheidung faellt mir schwer, aber kommt Zeit, kommt Rat.
auf Englisch: Should I marry her or not? It's a difficult decision, but time will tell.
(from the Guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
zB: Soll ich sie heiraten oder nicht? Die Entscheidung faellt mir schwer, aber kommt Zeit, kommt Rat.
auf Englisch: Should I marry her or not? It's a difficult decision, but time will tell.
(from the Guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Laughter is Good for Everyone
Well, I tried to get myself set up to post a video directly to my blog, and it looks like I’ll have to wait until YouTube catches up to the new, improved Blogger. Anyway, here a link to a laughing baby that made me smile and laugh, too.
And, since I promised to keep you updated on the progress of the mitered square sock yarn afghan, I’ve gotten almost another full row of 9 squares done and tried to upload a picture. Blogger is refusing to acknowledge it, so I’m going to take my technologically cursed self out and do something low-tech today!
Have a great Thursday!
And, since I promised to keep you updated on the progress of the mitered square sock yarn afghan, I’ve gotten almost another full row of 9 squares done and tried to upload a picture. Blogger is refusing to acknowledge it, so I’m going to take my technologically cursed self out and do something low-tech today!
Have a great Thursday!
Oddball Word of the Day
titivate (TIT-eh-vate) v. todress up; to make smart; to adorn
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Inspired Total Dorkhood
Sometimes I have these ideas that I know are funny in a ha-ha way, but then I get an urge to try them out in real life. When I mention them to my family with lots of enthusiasm for actually carrying them out, they look at me like the total dork I occasionally am.
My usual ideas, if we’re counting by number of recommendations, include classroom activism. I keep urging my kids to ask for homework if they haven’t been assigned any, to ask for more homework if they’ve only been given busywork, or to ask to have some lame coloring project changed to a term paper or research paper. I feel very enthusiastic about this! They are convinced I am dangerously hyperacademic. I also suggested that my daughter motivate all her friends in French 4 to march to and fro in front of the principal’s office class during the lunch period, campaigning for French 5 or a Conversation class. She gave me the look. Hey, the teacher said she’d teach either one if the administration would approve it!
Then there are resurrection ideas – where I try to resurrect something that used to be popular either in my youth or in someone else’s long before my time, but that sound interesting. My neighbors think the idea of a progressive dinner party is the strangest thing they’ve ever heard of. Actually, that works out OK for me because I probably couldn’t afford the maid service hours it would take to turn our house, which looks more like a large college dorm co-op on the inside, into a suitable destination even for just the nuts course. I’m still trying to sell Sock Hops to the teenagers I encounter.
I have to hold myself back from holding forth in the Voice of the People letters to the editor column in the newspaper about once a month. It’s not that I’m looking to rouse rabble, it’s that we have a really lame paper, and I’d like to take them to task for doing less investigation of the facts in their own stories than George Bush did on his college term papers. I could get all worked up about protesting pretty much anything our current government has done, too, but that all seems to involve riding on buses to distant places or sitting in a tent with no indoor plumbing, and I have a weak bladder.
So, my latest dorky idea combines several elements. First of all, I support charities – not single-handedly (har!), but there are certainly a number of very worthy charities around and I like to support them to a reasonable extent. Usually, that involves either writing a check or knitting something, since I’m not very likely to give a batch of perfectly good brownies to anyone, not with three teenagers in my own house. I read in the local paper that the police department is sponsoring a Trivia Night with the proceeds going to Special Olympics. I actually volunteered with Special Olympics in my misspent youth, and they really do a good job making the participants feel good about themselves and promoting healthy activity. The Trivia Night will accept pre-determined teams of 8 or you can pay at the door and join any open table.
My first thought was to get my entire family together and get the three kids to bring a friend each and we’d be our own table. They nixed it. Then I suggested to hubs that he find a friend or two, and I’d find a friend or two, and then, with our kids, we’d be a table. He nixed it. I thought about asking my local sub-chapter of Mensa to get a team together, but the last time I did anything of the sort, it wound up being me and the coordinator, who was late and had to leave early, so that was pretty much of an automatic nixing, since I have no interest in expending as much energy as it would take to find 7 local M’s and then whip them into a participatory mood.
I may have mentioned here before that I live in the “meanest town in Illinois”, as more than one visitor from another country has dubbed it. Lots of newcomers feel the same way, and I have plenty of episodes of my own I could relate, but I would bore myself as well as you by recounting them. Suffice it to say that like most small towns, this one has its fair share of xenophobes and they are vocally so. So, newcomers can be here decades and still feel like they’re not part of the town.
I’ve recently had occasion to encounter a few such newcomers-of-decades, and we enjoy one another’s company, and not just for the purpose of trashing the xenophobes and their –ia, as it were. We converse, we dine, we laugh, and we discuss a wide variety of things. So, now I’m thinking of getting a group of newcomers together as a team for the Trivia Night. At first, in a small moment of nastiness, I thought of designating such a group the “NFM Club”, or Not From Mxxxx Club. But that would be mean and backfire, and we have spouses who work here who would not appreciate any potential slurs.
So, now I’m thinking, hey, why not just go forward in a way that would accomplish the goal without being snarky– making new friends, making newcomers feel welcome, and contributing to a good cause, and offer ID badges that just identify us as “FRIENDLY” for anyone who wants to join a table at Trivia Night. We could fill in our first names underneath, and it wouldn’t matter if you were from town or new or a long-term newcomer, being FRIENDLY is a good thing.
Except, I think I might be being a total dork again. But I’m still THINKING about it!
My usual ideas, if we’re counting by number of recommendations, include classroom activism. I keep urging my kids to ask for homework if they haven’t been assigned any, to ask for more homework if they’ve only been given busywork, or to ask to have some lame coloring project changed to a term paper or research paper. I feel very enthusiastic about this! They are convinced I am dangerously hyperacademic. I also suggested that my daughter motivate all her friends in French 4 to march to and fro in front of the principal’s office class during the lunch period, campaigning for French 5 or a Conversation class. She gave me the look. Hey, the teacher said she’d teach either one if the administration would approve it!
Then there are resurrection ideas – where I try to resurrect something that used to be popular either in my youth or in someone else’s long before my time, but that sound interesting. My neighbors think the idea of a progressive dinner party is the strangest thing they’ve ever heard of. Actually, that works out OK for me because I probably couldn’t afford the maid service hours it would take to turn our house, which looks more like a large college dorm co-op on the inside, into a suitable destination even for just the nuts course. I’m still trying to sell Sock Hops to the teenagers I encounter.
I have to hold myself back from holding forth in the Voice of the People letters to the editor column in the newspaper about once a month. It’s not that I’m looking to rouse rabble, it’s that we have a really lame paper, and I’d like to take them to task for doing less investigation of the facts in their own stories than George Bush did on his college term papers. I could get all worked up about protesting pretty much anything our current government has done, too, but that all seems to involve riding on buses to distant places or sitting in a tent with no indoor plumbing, and I have a weak bladder.
So, my latest dorky idea combines several elements. First of all, I support charities – not single-handedly (har!), but there are certainly a number of very worthy charities around and I like to support them to a reasonable extent. Usually, that involves either writing a check or knitting something, since I’m not very likely to give a batch of perfectly good brownies to anyone, not with three teenagers in my own house. I read in the local paper that the police department is sponsoring a Trivia Night with the proceeds going to Special Olympics. I actually volunteered with Special Olympics in my misspent youth, and they really do a good job making the participants feel good about themselves and promoting healthy activity. The Trivia Night will accept pre-determined teams of 8 or you can pay at the door and join any open table.
My first thought was to get my entire family together and get the three kids to bring a friend each and we’d be our own table. They nixed it. Then I suggested to hubs that he find a friend or two, and I’d find a friend or two, and then, with our kids, we’d be a table. He nixed it. I thought about asking my local sub-chapter of Mensa to get a team together, but the last time I did anything of the sort, it wound up being me and the coordinator, who was late and had to leave early, so that was pretty much of an automatic nixing, since I have no interest in expending as much energy as it would take to find 7 local M’s and then whip them into a participatory mood.
I may have mentioned here before that I live in the “meanest town in Illinois”, as more than one visitor from another country has dubbed it. Lots of newcomers feel the same way, and I have plenty of episodes of my own I could relate, but I would bore myself as well as you by recounting them. Suffice it to say that like most small towns, this one has its fair share of xenophobes and they are vocally so. So, newcomers can be here decades and still feel like they’re not part of the town.
I’ve recently had occasion to encounter a few such newcomers-of-decades, and we enjoy one another’s company, and not just for the purpose of trashing the xenophobes and their –ia, as it were. We converse, we dine, we laugh, and we discuss a wide variety of things. So, now I’m thinking of getting a group of newcomers together as a team for the Trivia Night. At first, in a small moment of nastiness, I thought of designating such a group the “NFM Club”, or Not From Mxxxx Club. But that would be mean and backfire, and we have spouses who work here who would not appreciate any potential slurs.
So, now I’m thinking, hey, why not just go forward in a way that would accomplish the goal without being snarky– making new friends, making newcomers feel welcome, and contributing to a good cause, and offer ID badges that just identify us as “FRIENDLY” for anyone who wants to join a table at Trivia Night. We could fill in our first names underneath, and it wouldn’t matter if you were from town or new or a long-term newcomer, being FRIENDLY is a good thing.
Except, I think I might be being a total dork again. But I’m still THINKING about it!
Oddball Word of the Day
luteous (LOO-tea-us) adj. of a greenish yellow color
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Monday, April 16, 2007
Spawn Abroad
Spawn went on his first solo trip out of state this past weekend. I suppose he wasn’t really solo, seeing as his girlfriend went with him. They wanted to visit a mutual friend from high school who got married a few months ago and moved to somewhere outside of Indianapolis.
We loaded him up with gasoline, proof of insurance, an emergency road service number, my obnoxious Garmin navigator, an emergency-only credit card, and more good advice than any teenaged boy wants. He and his girlfriend headed off mid-afternoon, and, as they left, I hugged him, told him I trusted him to be safe, hoped he had a great time, and not to worry about calling until he was on his way back on Sunday. He was so thrilled.
When he first proposed the idea, my gut said, “NO! ACK! Road dangers!” and then I remembered that I’m supposed to be showing him trust and letting him grow up. My husband let his gut talk for him, especially once he heard about the girlfriend going along, but at least he said all the parent things to me, not Spawn. I told him that I understood and then pointed out that he and I had not only been taking road trips together for quite some time when I was 19, but that we also went to Michigan on a motorcycle, too. He looked like he wished my memory weren’t quite so good, but he also gave a wry grin and said, “OK, I see what you mean.”
I was glad I didn’t have to argue too much in favor of letting Spawn scamper across state lines; I’d have felt horrible if anything had happened and I had been an unwitting party to unfortunate events. We made a team decision and told Spawn that we were fine with him going, that we just had a few ordinary, commonsense restrictions that we felt obliged to say aloud, and he was truly delighted that we had OK’d the trip. I think he expected more of a fight.
Well, Spawn arrived home last night happy and healthy and clearly pleased beyond compare to have made a big road trip without a parent. I have no doubt that he worried a little, silently, in bits, since this was his first such trip. I’m also quite sure that he made sure to be sensible and prudent without sacrificing his fun time. He was full of road stories, which was cute – the main road there was closed for a section and they had to detour down a spooky road, and Garmin made sure they were able to find their way back to the main drag. They encountered new traffic patterns, got some experience on interstate highways, learned how to travel as a couple, and laughed and talked.
Then Spawn said something that made me realize that behind the goatee and the earrings that same smart kid is still chewing things over. He said, “You know, I understand now why road trips are such a part of American culture. You’d think it would be the big things that made road trips interesting, but it’s not. It’s the little things that you see or talk about along the way, and how people can relate to each other differently on a road trip. We didn’t do anything particularly different or huge, but I feel different now that I’ve done a road trip.” And then he started eating up all my cheese again.
It’s different from this side, too. It was nice that it turned out well, and I feel good about it myself. I’m glad to see him building confidence in himself and taking risks and trying new things. I’m happy to see him maintaining distant friendships and evaluating other people’s choices without making judgments. I’m glad he and his girlfriend got away from their family stressors and related with each other and peers for a few days.
And breathing and sleeping were a little easier last night and today, too.
We loaded him up with gasoline, proof of insurance, an emergency road service number, my obnoxious Garmin navigator, an emergency-only credit card, and more good advice than any teenaged boy wants. He and his girlfriend headed off mid-afternoon, and, as they left, I hugged him, told him I trusted him to be safe, hoped he had a great time, and not to worry about calling until he was on his way back on Sunday. He was so thrilled.
When he first proposed the idea, my gut said, “NO! ACK! Road dangers!” and then I remembered that I’m supposed to be showing him trust and letting him grow up. My husband let his gut talk for him, especially once he heard about the girlfriend going along, but at least he said all the parent things to me, not Spawn. I told him that I understood and then pointed out that he and I had not only been taking road trips together for quite some time when I was 19, but that we also went to Michigan on a motorcycle, too. He looked like he wished my memory weren’t quite so good, but he also gave a wry grin and said, “OK, I see what you mean.”
I was glad I didn’t have to argue too much in favor of letting Spawn scamper across state lines; I’d have felt horrible if anything had happened and I had been an unwitting party to unfortunate events. We made a team decision and told Spawn that we were fine with him going, that we just had a few ordinary, commonsense restrictions that we felt obliged to say aloud, and he was truly delighted that we had OK’d the trip. I think he expected more of a fight.
Well, Spawn arrived home last night happy and healthy and clearly pleased beyond compare to have made a big road trip without a parent. I have no doubt that he worried a little, silently, in bits, since this was his first such trip. I’m also quite sure that he made sure to be sensible and prudent without sacrificing his fun time. He was full of road stories, which was cute – the main road there was closed for a section and they had to detour down a spooky road, and Garmin made sure they were able to find their way back to the main drag. They encountered new traffic patterns, got some experience on interstate highways, learned how to travel as a couple, and laughed and talked.
Then Spawn said something that made me realize that behind the goatee and the earrings that same smart kid is still chewing things over. He said, “You know, I understand now why road trips are such a part of American culture. You’d think it would be the big things that made road trips interesting, but it’s not. It’s the little things that you see or talk about along the way, and how people can relate to each other differently on a road trip. We didn’t do anything particularly different or huge, but I feel different now that I’ve done a road trip.” And then he started eating up all my cheese again.
It’s different from this side, too. It was nice that it turned out well, and I feel good about it myself. I’m glad to see him building confidence in himself and taking risks and trying new things. I’m happy to see him maintaining distant friendships and evaluating other people’s choices without making judgments. I’m glad he and his girlfriend got away from their family stressors and related with each other and peers for a few days.
And breathing and sleeping were a little easier last night and today, too.
Oddball Word of the Day
turpitude (TUR-pih-tood): n. wickedness of character; a wicked or depraved act
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
Friday, April 13, 2007
Five Favorite Stuffed Toys
I didn’t have many stuffed animals or dolls as a kid – I had a koala bear instead of a teddy bear, and back then stuffed things were usually stuffed with an abominable sawdust mixture and made of heinous plastic fibers, which made them mostly uncuddly and very unwashable, so the koala was Not My Favorite. I also had some hand-me-down toys from my sister, and, sibling rivalry having been ramped up to the nuclear level between us, you can imagine how little I cared about the hand-me-downs. A few months ago, I decided to quit stealing my kids’ stuffed toys and get some for myself, just because. So, I have:
1. A stuffed emperor penguin with chick: I love this one, it’s soft, soft, and I like penguins. The chick is attached, sitting right between Dad’s feet, cute as can be. This one rides in my car with me, and the kids borrow it for cuddling when we’re going somewhere.
2. A Raggedy Ann and Andy: I count them as one because it seems wrong to have one twin without the other. When I was in elementary school, there were a lot of kids’ books about the Adventures of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. They ate a lot of candy, in fact, they ate candy exclusively. I thought that was a little yucky, but I liked the whole fantasy aspect of their stories when I was a kid. Also, I can wash them, and I like that they are plain, modest, and friendly looking.
3. Paddington Bear: Oh, Paddington. If I could have traded lives with anyone or anything or a fictional character in my childhood, it would have been Paddington. I envied him his life with the Brown family. No matter how sticky he got, how often he got lost, how many times he dug up the wrong plant, let the tub run over, or made a mess of the kitchen, they loved him nonetheless. What a lucky bear! I envied his duffel coat and his rain hat, and I wished I were him. So, I have a Paddington Bear, and he sits in my knitting basket next to my usual chair. Sometimes I just look and him and smile, and other times I pick him up and straighten his coat and give him a hug. A Paddington Bear is a good thing.
4. Not Got A Sock Monkey Yet. I can’t decide whether I want to knit one for myself or buy a pre-made sock monkey on line. When I was little, you couldn’t buy sock monkeys, someone had to make one for you. My friend Sarah had one, and all the way up until 6th grade, she slept with her sock monkey. It looked rode hard and put away wet and was all lopsided because she liked to sleep on it in one particular way. Lucky monkey, to be so loved! So, I’m still dithering over the monkey.
5. Fifi, sort of. She’s a black poodle wearing blue pajamas and white bunny slippers. I tried to give her to my daughter, but my daughter has her tiny teddy, Theodora, who rules the Pink Bedroom with a worn Iron Paw. Bunny doesn’t play with Fifi much, and every time I’m in her room, I pick up Fifi and snuggle with her. I went to one of those stores where you pick out a stuffed animal and add any noisemakers to it, if you want, before they fluff in the stuffing for you. Then you pick out clothing and pay a large wad of cash, and they create a nice cardboard cradle or pet crate, and you have to name the critter before you leave. Fifi was my first. I later had a pig stuffed and dressed him in a silver tracksuit and gave him to Spawn. His name was Kevin Bacon. Yeah, well, I probably needed an aspirin.
Anyway, I’m thinking of filing formal adoption papers to have Fifi become mine officially, and if that causes a lot of horrified expressions on Bunny’s face, followed by a great teenaged slamming of doors, then I’ll go make one up for myself.
Man, now I feel like I need a nap. With a stuffed critter!
1. A stuffed emperor penguin with chick: I love this one, it’s soft, soft, and I like penguins. The chick is attached, sitting right between Dad’s feet, cute as can be. This one rides in my car with me, and the kids borrow it for cuddling when we’re going somewhere.
2. A Raggedy Ann and Andy: I count them as one because it seems wrong to have one twin without the other. When I was in elementary school, there were a lot of kids’ books about the Adventures of Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy. They ate a lot of candy, in fact, they ate candy exclusively. I thought that was a little yucky, but I liked the whole fantasy aspect of their stories when I was a kid. Also, I can wash them, and I like that they are plain, modest, and friendly looking.
3. Paddington Bear: Oh, Paddington. If I could have traded lives with anyone or anything or a fictional character in my childhood, it would have been Paddington. I envied him his life with the Brown family. No matter how sticky he got, how often he got lost, how many times he dug up the wrong plant, let the tub run over, or made a mess of the kitchen, they loved him nonetheless. What a lucky bear! I envied his duffel coat and his rain hat, and I wished I were him. So, I have a Paddington Bear, and he sits in my knitting basket next to my usual chair. Sometimes I just look and him and smile, and other times I pick him up and straighten his coat and give him a hug. A Paddington Bear is a good thing.
4. Not Got A Sock Monkey Yet. I can’t decide whether I want to knit one for myself or buy a pre-made sock monkey on line. When I was little, you couldn’t buy sock monkeys, someone had to make one for you. My friend Sarah had one, and all the way up until 6th grade, she slept with her sock monkey. It looked rode hard and put away wet and was all lopsided because she liked to sleep on it in one particular way. Lucky monkey, to be so loved! So, I’m still dithering over the monkey.
5. Fifi, sort of. She’s a black poodle wearing blue pajamas and white bunny slippers. I tried to give her to my daughter, but my daughter has her tiny teddy, Theodora, who rules the Pink Bedroom with a worn Iron Paw. Bunny doesn’t play with Fifi much, and every time I’m in her room, I pick up Fifi and snuggle with her. I went to one of those stores where you pick out a stuffed animal and add any noisemakers to it, if you want, before they fluff in the stuffing for you. Then you pick out clothing and pay a large wad of cash, and they create a nice cardboard cradle or pet crate, and you have to name the critter before you leave. Fifi was my first. I later had a pig stuffed and dressed him in a silver tracksuit and gave him to Spawn. His name was Kevin Bacon. Yeah, well, I probably needed an aspirin.
Anyway, I’m thinking of filing formal adoption papers to have Fifi become mine officially, and if that causes a lot of horrified expressions on Bunny’s face, followed by a great teenaged slamming of doors, then I’ll go make one up for myself.
Man, now I feel like I need a nap. With a stuffed critter!
Oddball Word of the Day
antipathy (an-TIP-uh-thee): n. a settled aversion; a basic repugnance
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
(from the guide to MMMW edited by Laurence Urdang)
German Idiom for Friday
sich ins Zeug legen: to work flat out, to go hammer and tongs at something
zB: Wenn du die vielen Briefe heute noch fertigschreiben willst, musst du dich ins Zeug legen.
auf Englisch: If you want to get all those letters written by today you'll have to work flat out.
Origin: Here "Zeug" refers to the harness of the draught animal.
(from the guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
zB: Wenn du die vielen Briefe heute noch fertigschreiben willst, musst du dich ins Zeug legen.
auf Englisch: If you want to get all those letters written by today you'll have to work flat out.
Origin: Here "Zeug" refers to the harness of the draught animal.
(from the guide to German Idioms by JP Lupson)
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